DragonSlyfer
by Wing-writer
Summary: Equidor is a simple farm boy, but once he meets a young dragon rider, he soon gets pulled in a grand adventure full of dangers amd mystery. As they travel they meet new companions, until a gunpowder explosion seperates them.
1. DragonSlyfer

**This is the first story out of a series of smaller stories with about 9 chapters in each. I hope that this story would be intresting to you. **

DragonSlyfer

**Prologue**

Staring into the night Gardraêl, the lord of darkness, ponders while his pet raven sits on his shoulder and preens his feathers. Kreal, unlike most ravens, was very intelligent and Gardraêls advisor and closest companion.

"Kwraaa, Gardraêl, if the prophecy is true then we must dispose of the Empire before they find the one they call the DragonSlyfer, and all his companions before they realize were are still alive."

Gardraêl replies calmly while pacing around in the room.

"Kreal as much as I respect you highly, I believe that attempting to destroy the Empire now is one of the most unnecessary things to do, our attack force is not nearly big enough, and even though we have the orcs and goblins as allies, without a proper plan we will be defeated and risk being executed. Timing is of the essence."

Kreal flew of Gardraêl and landed on the table. Spotting a large chunk of meat still left on the table Kreal grabbed at it with his beak.

"Humph, not listening to me eh? I foresee misfortune coming your way. He will kill you and your men. Act now and you may get him to serve you, but it's your choice whether you want to get killed or not."

Sighing, Gardraêl sits down on his chair and thinks hard. "Unless I know what he looks like and what dragon he is riding I will not be able to persuade him to join our cause."

Kreal shrugged and landed on his perch and took a nap. Gardraêl got up and paced again thinking of some way to overthrow the emperor. Coming up with nothing he summoned his second most trusted advisor. A large shadow burst through the door and a dark form stood at the doorway. A raggedy cloak surrounded the form with only his face showing. All you could see was 2 glowing red eyes on the face. The rest of his face was covered in smoke.

"You haven't failed me yet Tartis. Tell me what to do. With the day of the prophecy drawing nearer, I haven't a clue how to find the DragonSlyfer."

In a hollow voice Tartis replied "The DragonSlyfer is a great warrior of all sorts. There is not a blade he can't handle nor a bow he can' snipe with. We could observe all warriors and find the most efficient dragon rider. Then we can capture him or her."

"The prophecy claims that the DragonSlyfer would have a mark on the palm of his hand."

"Making it all the more easier for us to find him. I could use dark magic to weasel out who would be the DragonSlyfer."

"No. I went into hiding for a reason. I won't have you go around using dark magic for you know it slays multiple people . That would make it seem obvious that we are rising into power again. For only we use dark magic" He shook his head "No. I will send a group of soldiers. They would look less conspicuous."

"As you wish my lord."

Satisfied Gardraêl waved and the shade left the room. He summoned a small group of soldiers and planned on how to carry out the capture of the rider.

**Chapter 1: Meeting Ellie**

Waking up to the bright sun Equidor gets up. Knowing that he has to do chores he quickly gets dressed and heads to the kitchen. Looking for food to eat he takes a loaf of bread and some cheese from the cupboard. Squeezing some orange juice he takes the cup, bread and cheese to the table. Sitting down and grabbing a bite he ponders about what the day might bring. Once he finished he looked for his father. Noticing a small piece of paper on the door Equidor took it and began to read it. It said:

**Equidor, **

**I have left to go to the market to sell the extra crops and jewels that we had. I will be back in a couple of days. You know what to do. I expect that the house will be well tended and that the animals are healthy. I'll see you soon. **

**Halton**

**P.S. You know the old house by the river? I want you to go and meet the people that live there. I hear that there is a girl living there. It would do you good to make friends. **

Throwing it into the garbage Equidor grabbed a sac of money on the counter and hurried of to the butcher shop. As he headed of to the shop he looked around him and noticed that it was getting humid. Worried that it was going to rain he quickened his pace and got there in a couple of minutes. Closing the door behind him he knocked on the counter, and tried to catch his breath. Behind the counter was a man as big as a tree wielding a butcher knife with blood all over his apron. When the man saw Equidor he smiled.

"Well if it isn't young Equidor. Gotten into trouble yet?" Wiping his brow Equidor shook his head and said

"No, just doing another errand for my father."

"Ahhh…. Old Halton eh? Up to his old tricks down by the market? I hear that there is a dragon's egg there. Maybe he might get it knowing how rare one is."

"I doubt that he will buy it. Especially after his some of best sheep were eaten by one."

"Ah well it happens some times. Rouge dragons come down from the mountains and devour whatever they could find. Anyhow what can I do for you?"

Putting 3 shillings on the counter Equidor asked for some meat. When he got that he thanked the butcher and took off to bring the meat home. When he got back home he put the meat away and grabbed a few trinkets that he kept with him at all times. Picking up the ring that he kept with him at all times he slipped it onto his middle finger. Looking around he picked up his bag and took off back down the road. Sometimes he wished that he lived slightly closer to the village, and that the other children would play with him more. When he got to the village he decided to meet the people. Rounding a corner he didn't notice a girl reading a book quietly and crashed straight into her. Feeling somewhat dazed he gets up while the girl picks up her bag and puts her books into it. He caught a glimpse of a book called: **Dragon training**, he wonders why she was carrying it around. When she got up he noticed that there was a scar on her left cheek and that she wore a cap on her head. "Sorry, I didn't see you there" he mumbled. She just smiled and said "It's ok. My name is Ellie. What's yours?"

"Equidor."

"Nice to meet you Equidor."

Equidor spied something shining on her neck and saw that it was a necklace. He peered at it and saw writing on it. He tried to read it when Ellie took off the necklace and put it in her pocket. "So do you want to come over or should you go home. It looks like it's going to rain."

"I think that I will go home. Don't want to get wet. Nice meeting you Ellie"

"Thank you. Nice meeting you to"

Equidor turned around and headed straight home. _That was strange. Why was she wearing a cap? Why did she have the scar on her cheek? And why dose she seem so strangely familiar? _He pondered this all the way until he got home.

**Chapter 2: The Dragon Egg**

The first signs of rain had come. It started to drizzle by the time he got back home. Hoping that the rain wouldn't leak through he patched up all of the little holes with cedar sap. When the rain finally stopped Equidor went outside to start chopping wood. Taking out his axe he sighs and walks into the forest. Hacking away at a small tree Equidor wipes his brow with his sleeve. Muttering to himself he picks up the tree and puts it into a pile of wood he gathered and chopped. Gathering and bundling the rest of the wood with twine, he carried it while checking that his pouch doesn't get caught. Getting up, he picked up the bundle and was about to set back home when he spotted a large object under a shrub. Bending down to pick it up, he examined it carefully. It appeared to be a Dragon egg the way it seemed glow with anticipation. Wondering what species it was he turned it this way and that. Putting it into his pouch he hurried home quickly. On the way back he came across a massive pile of bones. Walking around them he saw that they once belonged to a dragon. Worried that there may be more about he hurried home as fast as possible. As he walked into the door he put down the firewood and set them to dry, then closed the door.

He checked that the dragon egg was still in his pouch and went to his room. There wasn't much in it, only a drawer, a small bed, a small table, and a window on the right wall. Looking around the room to see if anyone was watching him, he moved the drawer aside to show a small slate of mud that looked like the rest of the floor. He removed that one section to reveal a small door. Opening the door he entered a stairway and sealed the door again. The stairs led him into a large underground chamber filled with many things. A bookcase filled with books on legends, spell casting, cures for diseases and many more. Beside it was a small desk with blank pages and a pen. On the other side of the bookshelf were many shelves packed with herbs and medicine. Across from it was a small chamber with a large assortment of weapons. From swords to daggers to axes to throwing knives, most of the equipment was due to years of scavenging and exploring. In one corner sat a bag of throwing stars and knives. He couldn't remember where he found those, but all he could remember was that they were with him when Halton found him. Equidor took out the Dragon egg and looked for a good place to put it. He wanted to place it in a good place so that it doesn't ruin the books, scrolls and weapons if it did something funny. Thinking of no where to put it he plopped it onto the desk and began to study it. Writing down all of the details about it he also took out a book from the shelf: **Identifying dragons and their eggs. **Flipping through the pages he looked for a description that fit his egg. Unable to find one he closed the book and put it back on the shelf. Carefully putting away the paper that he written on he picked up the egg and brought it to his room. Putting it in the drawer, he made sure that he hid it from view knowing how valuable a dragon egg is. Then he thought better and took it out of the drawer and went back into the room. Putting it into the armory, knowing that it would damage the least there. He also took out a dagger from one of the racks, having a feeling that he would need it, and slid it down his boot. He then headed for the village to borrow that book from Ellie.

**Chapter 3: A visit to Ellie's house**

Arriving at the house Equidor knocks on it 3 times. He steps back and hears the door being opened. In the doorway stood Ellie, she seemed surprised to see him. "Hi Equidor, how nice of you to drop by."

"Hi Ellie. Can I come in?

"sure, want tea?"

"why not."

She left the door and headed to the kitchen. Entering the house Equidor looked around. He saw that it was well made and that there were many books and bookshelves lined on the wall. Scanning through them he saw one that seemed to stick out more than the others. He was about to take it when Ellie came in. He noticed that she was still wearing the cap, but the necklace was nowhere in sight.

Ellie sat down and gestured to the table. Sitting down Equidor took the tea and drank it. Looking at her more carefully he noticed that she was strikingly beautiful, in an odd sort of way. She had thick brown hair, and she had a striking figure, but the main thing he noticed was her eyes. They were deep sapphire blue and seemed to burst with knowledge, and although she was young he could tell that she was older than him by about 2 years.

"So what do you want to do?" Equidor shrugged and didn't reply. Ellie sighed and began to think.

"I know. Do you want to practice shooting? I have 2 bows that we could use and I have targets that we could practice on." Not thinking of anything else to do he agreed and headed out to the back.

"Ellie, I've been meaning to ask you. Can I borrow your book?" She frowned and asked "What book? We have so many books here."

"The one about dragon training. I though tha-"

At that moment Equidor felt the ground shake and a lour roar blasted from underneath his feet. He jumped up and grabbed the nearest thing he could find, which was his cup of tea in which he spilled it all over himself. Howling in pain he stripped off his shirt and tried to wipe the hot tea from his skin. Ellie rushed to get a cloth while stifling a laugh. When she came back Equidor was red all over. Not only because of the tea, but because he was blushing really hard. "Here wipe off the tea with the cloth. I have to grab a bin to clean up the mess." She said giggling at the same time. Grabbing the cloth he wiped of all of the liquid and soaked up as much moisture as he could from his shirt. Once he was sure that it wasn't too wet or too hot he put it back on and waited for Ellie to come back. He waited, and waited, and waited, until finally he could wait no longer. He stood up and walked around the house. He saw that there was a door half opened. Quietly he slid through the door and almost fell down some of the stairs. Steadying himself he creped down the stairs and came across another door. He slowly opened that one and a large claw shot out from the darkness. He yelped as it grabbed him and dragged him through the door.

**Chapter 4: Pepper gives a greeting**

The claw was strong and hot. In the darkness he couldn't quite make out the arm and the body, but that didn't matter now. Equidor was squirming and wriggling in the grasp of the creature. _**Stop squirming, it's making it harder to bite off your head and devour your body**__. _Equidor heard, or rather felt the voice in his mind and faltered slightly. Then all of a sudden the claw released him and he fell to the floor. **Whump!** He hit the floor back first and saw 2 large beady eyes staring at him in the darkness. He herd heavy breathing and felt hot steam blowing at his face. His eyes widened and his nose began to twitch. He then let out a huge sneeze. **AHHHHH-CHOOOO!!!!!** When he looked up he saw that the eyes have gone, but the presence of the creature was still there. He wondered where it was so he slowly got up and he crept around looking for something with a light. He felt something, but it was warm and soft to the touch.

"Eek, Whaaa? Who is it? Equidor?"

"Yea, it's me…. Ellie?"

"OF COURSE IT'S ME!!! And I would appreciate it if you stopped TOUCHING MY BUTT!!!!"

Equidor quickly retracted his hand and blushed again. This time he was glad that the darkness prevented her from seeing him.

"You are blushing aren't you well you are sooooo dead when I find you"

_Crap how did she know? I should better hide, but where?_

"Hiding won't help you. I will know where you will hide"

Equidor was about to run when he saw light and the whole room lit up. He covered his eyes and felt a sharp SMACK in the face. He uncovered his eyes and rubbed the area where he felt the smack. When his eyes cleared he saw that the room was huge. He also saw Ellie with her hand raised ready to smack him again and grabbed her arm before she could deliver another one. Although he was looking at the room, all he could see was the large creature in front of him. Or rather there was a dragon that was blocking his view. It turned its head and stared at him again, only this time projecting its thoughts. _**Ellie talked me out of eating you. She said that you would taste terrible, cause you taste like tea and I hate tea. **_

All Equidor could do was stare at the immense creature and he let go of Ellie's arm. He didn't know what to say except.… "Am I dreaming, because if I am pinch me."

Ellie drew back a fist and landed it hard on his shoulder.

"OW. I said pinch. Not punch!"

"That was for grabbing my ass"

"Alright already I GET THE POINT. The slap was hard enough! God"

She smiled and looked at the dragon as though she was projecting thoughts to it.

It nodded and projected its thought speech at him. _**My name is Pepper. How are you Equidor?**_

"Um…..Fine thank you…Pepper…um are you male or female?"

He saw that pepper was huffing at him. At first he didn't understand, what it was doing, but then it dawned him that it was laughing at him.

_**I am a female, although I expected your first question to be somewhat more……how should I say… Intelligent? **_Equidor stood there paralyzed for a bit. Then he asked "How do you get out of the room?"

Instead of answering Pepper stepped onto a large slab of stone and one of the walls opened. He saw that the wall led up to a tunnel and that the tunnel led to the outside. Ellie climbed onto Peppers back and gestured him to climb on as well. He shook his head and started up the tunnel. He felt a huge gust of wind as Pepper bounded up the tunnel. The wind was so strong it twirled him around like a mere leaf. When he stopped spinning he walked as straight as possible up the tunnel until he got out. There Pepper and Ellie stood waiting. He could have sworn that part of Pepper's face flickered to a hideous black crystal like growth. He shook his head and his mind cleared he aw Pepper's face was normal and wondered if he imagined it, then he looked up and saw that it was dark. He turned to Pepper and Ellie and said "It's getting dark. I have to get home soon."

"That's ok we can play another time. Right Pepper?"

_**Yes, and hope that you get rid of the tea smell before you come back**__. _

Equidor paled as Pepper licked her lips. Ellie frowned and shook her head at Pepper. She shrugged and turned her head to char some wood. Ellie then apologized for Peppers rude behavior. Equidor waved good-bye. He then headed off to his house. He then remembered with a shock that he wanted to borrow Ellie's book. Equidor ran back to the field where he departed with Ellie and Pepper, but when he got there they were gone. He searched for them, scanning the skies without luck. _I'll ask her tomorrow. _Little did he know what horrors the next day would bring.

**Chapter 5: The Dragon**

As he walked back to his house he kicked stones on the path, wondering how he would be able to befriend Pepper. As he neared the road to where his house was he looked up and felt that something was not right. He took out the dagger from his boot and headed to the front of the house. He saw in shock that the front door was almost torn off its hinges. He slowly entered his house and gasped as he looked around his house. All of the furniture was torn up and destroyed, he then ran to his room, clutching the dagger in his right hand. His room door was also a wreck. The table was completely destroyed, and the cupboard that was on top of the secret door was chopped into a million pieces. He hurriedly went to open the door and was relived to see that it was intact and untouched. Opening it he went down the stairs and into the room. To his relief he saw that whoever ransacked his house did not touch the chamber. Looking about he made sure that everything was in place and in order. All of a sudden he felt a presence in the room. He grabbed the dagger by the handle and slowly went to the armory. He heard a loud clang and the sound of metal falling and gripped the dagger more tightly. He gulped and went into the room. Something small lunged at him and he fell down loosing his grip on the dagger. He tried to look for it and saw it, under the beast's foot. He tried to pry the foot off of the dagger when he noticed that there was something about the toes that made him think twice. On its 3 toes were 3 very sharp claws _Kinda like Peppers, only much MUCH smaller. _That made him stop, and slowly look up into the face of a baby dragon.

"How did you get here?"

Then he remembered that he brought the dragon egg into the house and put it into the chamber. "Oh" he said quietly. The dragons started to sniff around the armory and then it started to smell him. Alarmed he quickly stood up and the dragon snapped open it's mouth. Equidor reeled around and tried to grab something but slipped and fell back to the ground. He felt somewhat dazed and got up. He then suddenly felt a buzzing around the back of his skull, then a presence replacing that buzzing. He tried to pull at it with his mind but it refused to move, instead seeming to snap back at him. He withdrew the attack and slowly tried to figure out what it was. He could hear sounds and voices there, but none that he knew. Also he felt that something was trying to communicate with him. His first response was _Hello?_

What he got was a rush of words. He struggled to sort them out and managed to get a grasp on a sentence. _**Feed me!!**_ He suddenly looked at the dragon again and he heard the voice again _**Well what are you waiting for I AM HUNGRY!!! **_Equidor turned and rummaged in his sac and found small chunks of salted meat. He brushed as much of the salt off it and gave it to the dragon. It sniffed it and ripped off large chunks of the meat and chewed. He kept knelt down and stayed there until the dragon swallowed the meat. It squeaked and Equidor stroked its head. "What type of dragon are you?" He heard a sharp shrill and covered his ears. Then he heard "I don't really know. Thanks for the food though." Equidor starred at the dragon for a long time, and examined it. It was a dark black and its eyes are green. It's wings were also black like its scales. He gently picked it up as the dragon yelped in protest. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Fine, but …OW! Your nails are sharp"

"I thought that dragon scales are hard. I know a lot of knights that broke their swords against dragon scales."

"Their weak when we are first born, but they get harder as we grow older."

"Oh"

Equidor placed the dragon down on the floor and said "I'm gonna grab what I can down there. There are many weapons that we could use if we get attacked, herbs that we could use and books that could sell for a lot."

"Ok, I'll stay here and find food to eat."

Equidor rolled his eyes and headed back down the stairs. He went into the armory and he took favorite sword and a couple of throwing knives. He tucked those into his pouch and grabbed a bow and a quiver full of arrows. He put the bow into the quiver along with the arrows and put an axe into his belt. He then took out a case from under a shelf and opened it. There in the case was a rifle along with ammo and gunpowder. He took the ammo and gunpowder and put it into his pouch. Then he took out the rifle and shouldered it. He then went to his book shelf and took out certain books he knows would be good if he gets lost. He also put those into the pouch. Looking around he remembered to take some herbs. Finally Equidor looked around one last time and headed up the stairs. He sealed off the entrance and headed to the kitchen. He heard a loud crash and hurried into the kitchen. There he saw the dragon trying to reach a steak hanging from the ceiling.

"what are you doing?"

"Trying to get the meat, I'm hungry"

"Again? I just fed you."

"I get hungry a lot"

Equidor sighed and looked around for more food, and then he stopped. He didn't remember a large steak hanging from the ceiling. He suddenly felt nervous and he grabbed the dragon again. It protested again and even flapped its wings as hard as it could. Equidor put him into the pouch and tried to keep him quiet, without success. He yelps in surprise as a blade cam bearing down on him.

**Chapter 6: Surprise attack**

Equidor just barley dodged in time and felt the wind of the blade as it missed him by barley a centimeter. He grabbed the axe in his belt and swung it, only to have it parried by the blade. Thinking of nothing else he punched under the blade where he thought the stomach was. Equidor felt his fist connect and heard a grunt. The sword loosened and Equidor flipped the sword to he was wielding it. He stood in a ready stance and looked around. He couldn't see very much and he just noticed that it was dark he slowly backed out of the kitchen and headed out the door. There he saw 2 soldiers standing in the front yard with pikes pointed at him. He then heard the unsheathing of a blade and turned around. He saw another soldier with a sword in hand blocking the front door with a smug grin on his face. Equidor realized that it was that soldier that attacked him in the first place. He dropped threw the axe and the sword. The soldier in the doorway slashed his sword and the axe fell in half. The sword however totally missed his mark. He quickly took out the bow and an arrow. He pulled back the bowstring and let the arrow fly. It hit the swordsman square in the chest. He grunted and fell over with the arrow petruding from his chest. He heard yelling and he instinctively ducked as 2 lances flew and hit the walls of his house. He saw the 2 soldiers rush at him with daggers in hand and he didn't have time to dodge as a knife was thrown from a soldier and cut his arm. Pain lanced through his arm as blood started to pour from it. He knew that this was the end as the second soldier came foreword. He closed his eyes and heard a yell of surprise. He open his eyes and saw the dragon claw at the second soldiers face, and the first soldier taking aim with another dagger. The second soldier yelled and swung his dagger here and there. Thinking fast he placed another arrow into his bow and pulled back. He let the arrow fly and it hit the first soldier into his neck. The soldier fell over with a gurgle and went still. Equidor was about to let another arrow loose when he remembered about the dragon flying around he soldier. Not knowing what to do he put the bow and arrow back into the quiver search into his pouch for something he could hit the soldier without hitting his dragon. He suddenly saw out of the corner of his eye a flash, then a silhouette of something big. He turned his head and saw Pepper with Ellie on her back. Ellie gave a yell and threw a javelin at the soldier. Equidor gave a yelp of fright, but the small dragon flew up above the javelin and it hit the soldier in his hip. He let loose a yell of pain and fell over. Equidor ran up to the body and took out a throwing knife. Pepper put a foot onto the soldier, while Ellie held a spear at his throat. Equidor went up to the soldier and he examined him. The soldier was well built and his armor was scratched and stained with old blood and new blood from his side. "Go ahead and kill me boy." he rasped "It's a pity; you could have been a valuable player in the master's plan."

Shaking his head Equidor replied in a quiet but steady tone. "No. Killing you won't do me any good. I'm going to ask you some questions and you are going to answer them. Got it?"

"You can threaten me with death, but it won't work. All it would do is do me a huge favor. I will not spill any of my master's plan."

Ellie looked up at Equidor with an expression that probably said _Can I kill this bastard now?_ Equidor shook his head and stuck out his index finger and hit a point on his neck and the soldier fell unconscious. Equidor looked at Ellie and Ellie starred back at him. Then she gasped in surprise. "Equidor your arm! It's been cut badly" Equidor looked at the cut that the dagger inflicted upon him and winced in pain. "It's ok. It's not that bad." Ellie insisted that she bandaged it immediately. She took out a small vial and poured some of its contents onto the wound. Equidor grunted as the liquid came in contact with the wound. _Whoa, I just had a serious case of deja-vu. _Ellie then took out some cloth and wrapped it around his arm. Pepper gave a small huff and smoke blew everywhere. Then she spotted the small dragon flying around her head. Equidor noticed that Pepper was interested with the dragon _What is his name?_ Pepper suddenly asked. Equidor realized with a start that he didn't name the dragon.

_**What's your name?**_

_How should I know? I wasn't born with one. You choose. _

_**Um… ok…..Uhhhh. How about…. Spellfire?**_

_Hmmm……It has a nice ring to it. Not to long and not to short. I like it._

"His name is Spellfire."

Pepper seem to jerk back in surprise. Then Ellie looked at Equidor with an inquiring look. "Interesting choice of name Equidor. Why Spellfire?"

Equidor shrugged and replied "It was the first name that popped into my head. Besides Spellfire likes it."

Spellfire nodded his head and said "Yeah. I like it. It sounds nice."

Ellie jumped back in surprise, then looked at Equidor. "Your dragon. He can talk!"

Spellfire looked puzzled "What did I do?"

"Nothing Spellfire, it's just that not very many dragons can talk."

"So?"

"So, Ellie isn't used to talking dragons. Who would?"

"I guess your right."

Ellie tapped Equidor's shoulder and pointed at his house. "What happened? Your house looks like a wreck."

"These guys" he motioned to the corpses "trashed my house while I was visiting you."

"Soldiers right?"

"Yeah, except that one" He motioned to the one at the doorway. "He looked a little different and he was crazy good with his sword."

Ellie went for a closer look and she gasped in surprise. "How did you kill him?"

"I shot an arrow and I shot him in the stomach."

"I'm surprised that he didn't deflect it. This isn't an ordinary soldier. This is a Myrmidon."

"A Myrmidon?"

"Yeah a master of the blade. They are very skilled with the sword and almost never miss."

"Then how did he miss me?"

"Did you dodge at the last possible minute?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Oh, figures"

Equidor turned his head to the corpse and took the Myrmidons sword. He put it back into the scabbard and clipped it onto his belt. Then he turned to Spellfire and Pepper. He suddenly noticed that Spellfire had grown in such a short period of time. "Spellfire. Come here"

Spellfire obeyed and stood on the ground close to Equidor. He noted that he was almost the same height as him. _Note to self: keep track of Spellfire's growth._

_**I can do it for you**_

_Hey! What are you doing reading my thoughts!_

_**Oops, Sorry Equidor.**_

Equidor sighed as he turned to Pepper and Ellie. "So now what do I do? I have no home now and I doubt that your parents would appreciate me sleeping over."

Ellie looked down at her feet and said in a sad voice "My father is dead, and my mother is missing. I don't know where she is or where to look."

"Oh, I'm sorry then."

"It's ok."

"I could help you find her if you'd like"

Ellie looked up and smiled. "Would you?"

"Sure why not? We could even ask the emperor if he has any idea where she is. Maybe even join their army"

"Ok, but the castle is all the way in Kalara. Pepper can't travel that far, even with her…." Ellie stopped herself before she said anymore.

"Her what?"

_My powers. I can teleport from place to place, but I can't go too far or I lose a lot of energy. _

"You have powers?"

_That's how we got here in the first place._

"Oh, that explains how you got here so quickly."

Pepper sniggered and turned her head to look for Spellfire, but couldn't find him. Equidor also looked for Spellfire and also couldn't find him. "Spellfire's gone"

"WHAT!!!!!" Exclaimed Ellie "We have to find him!"

"But where would he be?"

Panicking Ellie and Equidor look around franticly. Suddenly Ellie stops and seemed to close her eyes. Equidor stopped as well and looked at Ellie with a puzzled look.

"Look Ellie we have to look for him, not just stand around and look at our feet. Now come. Ellie? Are you there?"

He noticed that she was still, very still. Ellie suddenly open her eyes and they were green. Equidor jumped back in surprise and landed on the ground.

"He's right there."

"I don't see anything."

"Right there" she says as she pointed at the black shadow

"All I see is a black shad……. Ooohhhhhh. That's where Spellfire is."

"What?" chimed in Spellfire

"You are a shadow. I can't seem to see you very well."

All of a sudden Equidor heard multiple screams, and whipped his head to the village. He could see fire blazing from some of the houses and he could hear screams ripping through the air.

"The village is under attack!"

"Hurry climb aboard Pepper, I think she can carry our weight. Spellfire can fly on his own."

"Are you armed?"

"Yes I have my silver lance and my mother's sword. What about you?"

"Yeah, um… I'm pretty loaded."

"Alright then unsheathe your blade, were going in."

**Chapter 7: Village raid**

Equidor could feel the beating of Pepper's wings as they flew closer and closer to the village. When they got near the village Equidor could see about 10 houses with blazing fires from the roofs. When they got to the village center, he could hear Ellie gasp and Equidor himself widened his eyes in shock. In the very middle of the square was a raging battle between villagers, soldiers and large, heavy, armored, lizard-like creatures with wicked looking scythes, frost pikes and large swords massacring the villagers. Ellie took out a bow as Equidor did the same. They shot arrows at the heads of the creatures and the soldiers. Many of them hit their mark as Villagers started to scream and yell as they saw Pepper flying overhead. Then the Lizard like creatures also looked up. Equidor started to aim at the insect like mouth when he suddenly saw Spellfire zoom out of no where as a shadowy haze about half the size of Pepper. Equidor recoiled back to avoid hitting Spellfire and the arrow went wild. It rebounded off of a villager's shield and straight into a Lizard creature's neck. It gave a loud bellow and dropped dead on the stone floor. Pepper came in for landing and Ellie jumped of her. Equidor stayed for a bit picking off at enemies, but ran out of arrows. He then took out his sword and the sword from the myrmidon and started to slash and hack like crazy. He slained many soldiers left and right, but when he fought a lizard creature he saw that he was no match for its heavy armor and brute strength. They traded blows until the creature picked him up and threw him onto the ground. Equidor lost grip on his swords and fell on the floor. Helpless and bloody he closed his eyes and waited for the creature to deliver the final blow. He then heard flapping and the loud cry of the creature. Opening his eyes he saw that Spellfire had attacked it from the air and ripped the creature apart. He then noticed the other soldiers and Lizard creatures retreat as they saw Spellfire's creature in shreds. They then bolted and dropped all of their arms in a rush to get out. Only the 2 dragon riders and their dragons were left on in the village square.

"Well that was fun." Ellie said cleaning off her blade.

Equidor kept quiet and looked for his blade. He found it on the floor next to the creature that Equidor slained with the rebounded arrow. He examined the creature hard. It was large and muscular. The armor was made with a strange blue metal. Its hand was strange as well. Instead of 4 fingers and a thumb it had 3 fingers and 2 thumbs. One thumb on each side. He then looked at the tail of this hulking beast and noted how strong it was. His eyes traced all the way to the tip where he saw a large bone sticking out into a spade like shape. Equidor stood up and was about to leave when he spotted the large scythe that it wielded. He bent to pick it up, but stopped when his hand was about 2 inches away. He had an uneasy feeling about this weapon. _It's just a scythe. What can it do to me?_ Taking a deep breath he reached for the weapon. He then put his hand on it and jumped back with a yelp of pain. He could feel a searing pain on his hand, and looked down. His hand was charred and blood began to seep out of some small cuts from the scorching metal and he felt his energy draining fast. Ellie came running to Equidor. When she saw the burn, her eyes widened and she fumbled in her bag. Equidor started to feel dizzy and his surroundings seemed blurry. He saw Ellie's lips move, but couldn't hear a thing. He also saw some of the villagers run to him and could feel Pepper and Spellfire coming to him. _**HOLD ON EQUIDOR!! **_But he couldn't and he slipped into oblivion…….......................

_**SPLASH!!!**_

_**SPLASH!!!**_

"He's waking up!"

"Splash him again, he needs to drink the tea."

_**SPLASH!!!**_

Equidor sputtered and woke open his eyes with a start. He saw an old women sitting in a chair and a young boy standing beside him with an empty bucket. Equidor was lying on a sack on the floor of a burnt down house. He got up, but keeled over and fell to the floor clutching his stomach. He saw the old women give the cup of tea to the young boy who gave it to Equidor.

"Take it and drink it. The tea will restore your blood. You look as pale as a ghost."

He took the tea and took a sip and spat it out as fast as he could.

"Drink it. It tastes bad but it will help you get better."

He took a gulp as fast as he could, but not fast enough. He could feel the foul liquid flow down his throat and the bitter aftertaste of the herbs. He made a face, and the old woman laughed.

"It helps you produce blood and increases your stamina, but not by much. So finish the cup."

As Equidor struggled to finish the cup he heard gravel shift and he saw Ellie enter what was left of the doorway. Then he put the cup down and rose, preparing himself for another shockwave from his stomach, but got up without a problem. Ellie ran across the room and hugged Equidor so hard he lost his breath. Ellie let go of him, her face almost completely red.

"I'm sorry Equidor. How are you feeling?"

"Yeah. I still feel kinda gross, but better than before. What happened?"

"You passed out when you touched the SoulReaper, that's what that scythe was. I poured _Vyalst _onto your hand and it prevented the Energy Reaper from reaching your heart."

"Wait, wait, wait. What is Energy Reaper?"

"It's what causes the scythe to kill so quickly. All of the victims of a SoulReaper don't get cut, but instead get burnt and their energy leak out from small cuts that come with the burns. Then they drop onto the floor, slowly loosing energy, and when the Energy Reaper reaches the heart, the heart stops and the victim dies."

"Then why didn't I die?"

"_Vyalst _is a type of liquid that blocks the flow the Energy reaper, but allows the blood to flow freely."

"Oh" he said quietly "Then what happened?"

"I was yelling for help and some villagers came running and they helped me carry you to this woman's house. She has been taking care of you for a couple of days now."

"A COUPLE OF DAYS!!!"

Equidor began to feel faint and he almost crumpled onto the floor. Ellie managed to catch him before he fell to the floor. Then she gently laid him down on the sac and put a pillow under his head.

"Lie down and get some rest. The herbs need time to circulate in your bloodstream."

He nodded, closed his eyes and fell asleep.

**Chapter 8: Powers of the cursed**

Equidor woke up in the middle of the night. He got up from the sac and looked around. He then got up and looked around for something to eat. He heard Spellfire look up and went over to him. Spellfire had a look of surprise on his scaly face.

"_What is it?"_

"_It's…uhhh…well… your not…is it possible to be in 2 places at once?"_

"_No, Why?"  
"Then how is it possible to be here…when your still lying in bed."_

Equidor looked surprised and turned around. What he saw almost made him fall over in surprise. He could see his own body lying thereon its own and yet he wasn't in the body. He looked down at himself and widened his eyes. All he could see was a ghostly apparatus of himself. He stuck his hand through a half burned wall and saw his hand disappear as his hand went through. He heard Spellfire say _"What are you doing?"_, but ignored him and stuck his leg through the wall. He pulled his leg and arm back into the room and looked at Spellfire, who looked back at him with a puzzled look. Equidor put a finger to his lips and bent his knees. Then he closed his eyes and braced himself. He took a leap through the wall. He felt wind pass his face and he felt impact. Then he hit the ground and landed flat on his stomach. He opened his eyes to find himself inside a house. _Dam it! I didn't pass through. _Then he remembered that he didn't feel impact and he looked around. He noticed that the house had a roof and saw that everyone wasn't there. He saw that the whole place was ransacked. He decided to walk around and see what he can find. Sifting through the wreckage he came across some equipment. Then he heard whispering in a corner of the house. Curious, he went to the corner to find a small hidden door. Equidor walked right through the door to find himself in a large room full of soldiers and a large wooden board on the other side.

"We have to wait until night, and then we can massively raid the village. The Ra'zan have left and with us only left after the dragon assault we will be killed if we attack now. We attack after in the morning when all of the villagers are just getting up."

"But the village is resting now, if we attack now we can do much more damage and even take hostages. It would make things so much easier and…"

"And what? Hope the dragons come back and slaughter us? Gardraêl gave us orders and we have to follow them."

Equidor felt a chill go down his spine. _Gardraêl! The exiled lord of the south not to mention the master of the shadows! _

"We'd better be cautious. There could be spies in the village." We attack in 30 minutes. It's almost Dawn."

Equidor rushed out of the room and hurried out of the room forgetting that he was a ghost. He ran into the burnt house and woke up Ellie. She slowly opened her eyes, and she screamed waking everyone up in the process. Pepper reared up and let loose a roar, the young boy almost fainted and Spellfire yawned and woke up like it nothing ever happened.

"No… Equidor are you dead?" Breathed Ellie

"Um…. No why do you think that I'….. Oh right. Well it's a long story."

"Then why are you like this?"

"That's not important. I went into the house beside us and I found a large amount of soldiers that are planning to raid the village in 20 minutes."

Ellie got up and took her weapon and hurriedly put on a coat. The boy also went into action and grabbed a frost spear from one of the racks. He then joined Ellie at the front door.

Ellie turned to him and said "We're going into the house to finish off the soldiers, if you want to come then you are going to have to get into you body again."

"How am supposed to do that?"

"Maybe if you lie down and concentrate on controlling your body again."

Equidor shrugged and laid back into his body and closed his eyes and reached for a consciousness in the body. He grabbed something and opened his eyes and saw Ellie and the boy look at him.

"Am I back in my body?"

The boy looked relived and replied "Yeah you are. Now grab you weapon, we're going to do battle."

**Chapter 9: ****The Frost mage**

Ellie, Equidor and the boy ran out the door and broke through the door of the ransacked house. Then Equidor led the way to the door and broke it open. All of the soldiers froze as the 3 warriors hacked their way through the door and then at the soldiers. As the first 3 soldiers fell the others grabbed their weapons and tried to squeeze past one another to attack the 3 young ones. Equidor slashed left and right with his two sword while Ellie slashed left and right with her mother's blade and the young boy froze many people right to the spot with the frost spear and throwing spells all over the place. After many minutes of battle the 3 kids studied the wreckage of the room. Corpses were strewn all over the place, many frozen statues and all of the soldiers slained. Breathless all three treated each other's cuts and scrapes.

"When did you become such a good medic?" Ellie asked

"Ever since I could remember, I guess."

"Well you are very skilled at it. About as good as my…" Ellie tried to hold back tears, but one of them managed to slip out. She brushed it away and tried to change the subject. "How far back do you remember?"

"Well I think until I was about around 9 years old, everything before then is kind of fuzzy."

Ellie just stood there deep in thought.

They sat down to catch their breath once the wounds were tended to. Equidor looked at the boy in curiosity; the boy looked back to him and opened his mouth to speak.

"Nice job. We beat them at their own game."

"Yeah. You to um…." Replied Equidor.

"The name's Irf, and where did you learn to fight like that. You almost clipped me twice."

Equidor apologized and turned his attention on the bodies. Looking at the frozen soldiers he wondered how Irf was able to grab hold of the spear without freezing himself. Irf saw the expression on Equidor's face and laughed. Equidor felt puzzled, He didn't see what was so funny. Equidor looked around for Ellie and saw that she was looting all of the bodied for anything useful. Equidor got up and saw that the Myrmidons sword was gone. He saw that Irf had taken it and was holding it. He grinned and Equidor raised an eyebrow and saw that the sword was covered with a layer of ice. The blade of the sword was coated with sharp ice crystals that could easily slice a mans flesh and the handle of the sword was completely covered in a comfortable layer of ice. Turning it upside down Irf handed it to Equidor. Equidor grabbed the handle gasped and almost dropped it on the floor. _He is a frost mage. That explains so much! _He expected the sword to be freezing cold and his hand to get frostbite, but instead the handle was surprisingly warm and inviting. He looked up at Irf and saw him suppressing a laugh.

"Thanks Irf. Where am I gonna keep it until the ice melts? The scabbard is too small."

"The ice isn't going to melt, not until my death. As for the sheath I made one out of Ice. It's not going to melt either until I die. And only you will not be frozen by its touch. Anyone else except another frost mage or a friend will feel the cold sting of the ice when come in contact."

"Thank you very much Irf." Equidor says as Irf hands him the scabbard.

Ellie came back with an armload of equipment, mostly valuables that the soldiers have stolen from other raids. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah. We can sell these valuables during the adventure. Any clue where you mother is?"

"Probably a prisoner to lord Gardraêl. He would take almost anyone prisoner to gain information, he would love to have an elf as a prisoner to torture. My mother told me to be careful and stay strong."

"Well let's go to Lord Gardraêls castle and pay him a visit."

Irf stared at him as if he was crazy. "ARE YOU MAD!!!! Do you know how heavily fortified his castle is? It's heavily defended and there are dark traps all over the place, not to mention his evil forces at work. With the Ra'zan on the loose and the plague hidden all over the place."

"Wait what are the plague?" Inquired Equidor.

Ellie filled him in about the undead and Equidor turned as white as a sheet. Equidor stood there for a few moments and then regained his senses.

"If Ellie will find her mother, we have to help her as much as possible. She can't do this alone."

"Well what about my Nana? I can't leave her hear alone."

"I can get the villagers to help her when needed. I haven't been here for a while, but the villagers seem to like me."

"That's settled. We'll leave first thing in the tomorrow."

"Ok."

"Ok."

Equidor smiles and the 3 friends headed back to the old demolished house.

**Epilogue: Ellie's story**

When they got back into the house the 3 kids split up their tasks and headed off to do them. Ellie want into the room in which she slept in and took off her cap. She then tried to concentrate on the task at hand, which was preparing medicines and herbs for the long journey ahead of them. She tried to pack them all so that they don't mix and they wouldn't crash against each other, but she was just to worried. Equidor came into what was left of a room where Ellie was working. He was about to tap her on the shoulder when he noticed that her cap was off, and what a surprise he got. His eyes landed onto her ears and saw how pointed they were. Not like a human, but somewhat like an elf. He stifled a yelp of surprise and tried to stay as quiet as possible. Equidor thought about leaving her room when he saw how distracted she was. He went up to her and tapped her onto her shoulder. Ellie gasped and turned around covering her ears.

"Don't sneak up on me like that." She said hurriedly putting her cap onto her head.

"It's ok. I saw your ears when I came in."

"Oh how long have you been in the room for?"

"About a minute or so."

"So you know?"

"Know that you are an elf? Yeah I do"

"No I am a half breed. A half elf and half human. My mother was an elf and father was a human. They both tried to hide me away, because I was considered dangerous."

"What?"

"You'll see I'll tell you all about it."

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­"Alright, but still what's wrong Ellie we are going to find your mother."

"Nothing. It's just that, I haven't seen my mother in years and…well I'm starting to worry that she wouldn't recognize me"

"I'm sure that she will remember you. So don't worry."

Equidor removed his hand and was about to leave the room when he saw something shiny on the floor. It was a necklace. He then remembered that Ellie was wearing it the day he bumped into her. He picked it up and saw that the writing wasn't her name as he suspected. Instead he saw the name Alicia encrypted in the gold. He walked to Ellie and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around and saw the necklace in his open hand. She gasped and she quickly grabbed the necklace and shoved it into her bag. This action puzzled Equidor. "How did you get this?"

"I found this on the floor amongst the ashes and the mud"

Ellie looked back at Equidor with a sad expression, and then hung her head. Tears began to well in her eyes and she started to sniffle. This puzzled Equidor even more. "What's wrong, first you are distracted form the task at hand and now you are crying over a necklace."

"You now know."

"Know what?"

"My name isn't Ellie."

"What are you talking about Ellie?"

"The necklace was given to me by my mother before she disappeared."

"Still what dose that have to do with… Oh. So your name really isn't Ellie right?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry I lied to you."

Equidor took a step back and looked for a place to sit down and absorb this. "Alicia, that's your name right?"

Alicia began to weep now as she nodded her head. "And I think I know why you moved here to our remote valley."

"Yes. I was being perused by Gardraêl, and his men. They are destroying the whole of Fyrla, just to find the DragonSlyfer."

"Well why don't you tell me your story, after you've calmed down."

Alicia sniffed and nodded. Just at that moment Irf came into the room to look for Equidor. When he saw Alicia crying he gave Equidor a _What the hell?_ expression. Equidor looked at him and sighed. "You'd better come in. There is something that Ali… I mean Ellie needs to tell us."

After Alicia calmed down Equidor quickly told Irf about Alicia's true identity. Irf didn't seem surprised and in turn surprised Equidor.

"She was always a strange one. I could tell she was hiding something."

"She'll tell us about what happened after she gets her work done."

Irf nodded and left the room. Equidor also was about to leave when he looked back and saw that Ellie was packing up the herbs, less distracted than before.

"You gonna be ok?"

"Yeah" She replied.

Equidor nodded and left the room to let Ellie do her book.

Once everything was done Equidor lit a fire, with Spellfire's help, and called to Irf. He came along with Pepper and Alicia and sat down on the cold ground. There Alicia began her tale.

_**The End of book 1**_

_**To be continued in: Shadows of Death**_


	2. Shadows of Death

Shadows of death

**Chapter 1: Strange dreams**

Alicia was running down a dark hallway. She was running from something, but she didn't know what she was running from. All she knew was that if she stopped she would die alone in the hallway. She kept running and started to tire out. She looked back and saw a large shadow loom closer and closer. She turned her head around and tripped over a loose brick. She tried crawling as far as possible without luck. Then she cried out in pain as sharp needle like things pierced her legs. She turned her head around and saw the monster pulling her back into its mouth. She let loose a scream as she felt its teeth bit down onto her waist. She then saw everything go dim, and then darkness swallowed her.

_________________________ __________________________

Alicia woke with a start in her bed. Beads of sweat rolling down her forehead and her breath was ragged. Her heart was pounding and she got up and looked out the window. It was still dark, and she could hear her younger brother snoring in the other room. She slowly crept out of bed in her. She put a cloak around her and she headed out of the house. She used the back door and headed to her parents grave. She knelt down and tried to hold back tears that started to well up in her eyes. 8 days ago her parents were fighting in the emperor's personal army fighting a remnant force of lord Gardraêl 1 year and a half later. Her father was slained in the battle and her mother went missing. They never found her body but they found her bloody cloths on the floor.

Alicia got up and went back indoors. She went to the basement to look for something's her mother gave her before she left. There were many things there. Mostly old books and old discarded equipment, but her mother gave her a sword, a necklace with her name etched into it and an egg. Her mother didn't tell her what was in the egg, but she told her to keep it safe. Alicia went to a box buried in a corner and opened it. Inside were the egg, the necklace and her mother's spare blade. She took out her blade and the egg and brought it to her room. As she slowly crept up the stairs she heard her brother waking up. Alicia hurriedly took her stuff and put them some where safe, in her wardrobe. She then flopped into her bed and pretended that she was sleeping.

"Alicia?" her brother wined

"What is it?"

"Are you awake?"

"Yeah. What are you doing up Flyt?"

"I heard you, plus I had a nightmare."

"Really? I did to. Why don't you tell me about it?"

"Ok, but I've been having this dream a lot these days."

"What? Why didn't you tell me earlier? You know what mother said" She choked on the word mother. "If your dreams repeat then it most likely happened."

"I know, but it was so creepy."

"Well why don't you tell me about it?"

"Ok here it goes." He took a deep breath and began. "I dreamt that I was flying. In the air. Flying away from something. Arrows were whooshing close by all over the place. In the dream I was confused. I didn't know what was going on. I felt a sharp pain somewhere above my back. I look back and I see an arrow sticking out of my wing. I had WINGS Alicia. At first I could fly for a bit. Then I started to plummet down to the ground. I had a sword strapped to my back and I took it out and pointed it outwards as I plummeted down into a stream. Suddenly I was standing on the side of the stream watching him plummet down. I screamed, but no one could hear me. He fell with a splash and he was submerged deep in the stream. I tried to run but I was paralyzed with fear. It was scary"

Alicia ran out of the room and put on a shirt and some pants. Then she grabbed her sword and strapped it to her belt. Then she ran out of the house towards the stream closest to her house. Her brother caught up with her and she turned around.

"Where did you see the boy plummet?"

He pointed at a clearing about 2 km from where they were standing. Alicia took no second glance and ran off in that direction. She ran and ran until she got to the clearing. She didn't see the boy anywhere. Alicia headed downriver and kept scanning the water. She suddenly tripped over something and cursed herself for being so clumsy. She felt for what it was and found out that it was a sword still in its scabbard. She saw her brother running after her with a lamp in his hand, gasping for breath.

"You should have brought this."

"Thanks. I will help a lot."

"No Proble……That's it!"

"What's it?"

"That's the sword that the boy had strapped to his back"

"So he must be close by."

Alicia went further upstream and saw a body lying half in the water. She quickly ran to the body and turned it over. She saw that it was a boy. He was very pale and very near death. Flyt hurried over and gasped in disbelief. Alicia lifted the boy up and slung him over her shoulder, and struggled to carry both swords in one hand. Flyt took one of the swords and Alicia smiled. Then they headed back home.


	3. Shadows of death Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Story of the Dragonkin**

Alicia laid the boy on the table and put down her sword. Flyt took went to his room and opened his cabinets to find herbs. Inside there was an assortment of medicines that Flyt created. From _Vyalst _to _Cyris _to _Flechin_, all of these vials helped with something. Flyt took out a bottle of _Flechin_ and some other vials and headed to the kitchen. Then he put the vials down on the table and popped the corks for the _Flechin _and another blue liquid called _Osin_. Alicia grabbed some of the _Flechin _and mixed it with a cup of water. She then let it trickle down the boy's mouth as Flyt made tea to go with the _Osin. _As Alicia finished pouring the last drop the boy coughed and gagged. His eyes opened and he saw Alicia standing over him. He looked around the room and saw Flyt making the medicine. He turned back to Alicia and gave her a cold stare.

"You will not get any out of me you wicked women." He growled.

Shocked, Alicia took a step back. "W..w..what are you talking about."

"Witch" he spat "I will not fall for your tricks. Trying to act so innocent. I know you have snipers here. I would rather die than to tell you anything."

"What the hell is he talking about?" Flyt came with the tea

"The torturer has come to use his vile instruments on me, well I'll tell you something. Your vile methods will not work on a Dragonkin."

Alicia managed to recompose herself and in a gentle voice she tried to calm the boy down.

"Look I know you are ill. Don't stress yourself by yelling at us."

"You are not going to break me witch. Torture me while I'm bound to the table and have trained archers aiming at me, you might as well kill me."

"You aren't bound to the table and there aren't any archers in the room. Whoever you are talking about isn't here. My name is Alicia, not this... witch you think I am. The boy is Flyt my brother."

The boy's eyes widened and he moved his arms experimentally. He saw that they weren't bound and lifted them. He then closed his eyes and a green light emitted from his chest. Alicia stared at him and the light started to fade. The boy relaxed and slumped back down on the table. Alicia grabbed him before he fell of the table. She then set him down gently and gave him the cup of tea that Flyt made for him. The boy weakly nodded and took it, struggling to sit up and drink the cup. Alicia and Flyt hauled him up into a sitting position. They helped him put the cup to his lips and he slowly drank the tea. Once the cup was empty Alicia and Flyt supported him and headed up to Alicia's room to let him lie down. Once he was in bed Alicia took Flyt to his room and took him to his bed to sleep.

"Go to sleep Flyt. Tonight was a hard night."

Flyt yawned, nodded and closed his eyes as he fell asleep. Alicia went down to the kitchen and took out a cloth and a spare blanket and slept on the floor.

The next morning Alicia woke up to find Flyt and they boy in the kitchen playing chess and eating bread and cheese.

"Queen to E4, and that's checkmate."

"No it's not. Bishop to E4, and I take your queen."

"Hmmm… Ahhhh. Rook to C3."

"Pawn to D5."

"Rook to C4. Checkmate for real."

"Danmit. That's the third game."

Alicia got up from the floor to grab something from the kitchen cupboard.

"Hey guys."

"Oh, Hi Alicia. Did we wake you up?"

"No." Alicia said. She then looked at the boy up and down. He looked back at her and looked a little flustered.

"Sorry about resisting you at the beginning. I thought that _she_ captured me."

"It's ok. It looks like you are feeling better."

"Yeah well thank you for your hospitality. My name is Wyrvan."

"Wyrvan? Sound like a strange name for someone like you."

"Yeah but it makes more sense to a Dragonkin."

Flyt looked up from the chess board and asked "What are Dragonkin?"

"Dragonkin are people that consist of dragon blood, human blood and Elvin blood."

"That sounds improbable. How does one get the blood of the dragon and elf in you."

Wyrvan looked around nervously before he continued. "I'm not supposed to say anything about this history, but you 2 seem like nice enough people. Just don't tell anyone, not even your parents."

"We have no parents to tell it to." Said Alicia sadly

"Oh…well I'm sorry to hear that. Ok, but don't breathe the story I'm going to tell you to a soul. Got that?"

The two kids nodded their heads and Wyrvan began the tale.

"It all started with a brave Paladin. He was a master of the blade, while most other Paladins prefer the lance, and everyone looked up to him. He was a kind man and fair to all, but the most evil hearted. His name was Gabriel. One day he was riding through the forbidden woods where the most feared creatures dwelled to get to the castle of Lord Gardraêl, before he was mad. His sword at the ready he was prepared to fight any creature. His first encounter was with a group of Wraiths. He slew them without very much of a struggle. Then he was ambushed by a horde of filthy Orcs. Although a brave warrior he was hopelessly outnumbered. The Orcs had overrun him and stole his stuff, leaving him to die on the floor of the forest. He stayed there for a long time and waited for death to claim him for he had lost a lot of blood. Then he heard a dragon walk towards him. To weak to call out for help and to avoid getting crushed, he waited for the giant foot to stomp on him. He heard the dragon look down and also heard the sound of a rider dismounting the massive creature. He looked up and saw the most beautiful women in the world. Of course this woman was an elf, for no one could be as beautiful as she, no offence."

"None taken carry on" replied Alicia.

"Where was I? Oh right… the elf lady. She saw how much blood Gabriel had lost and was about to give him some of her blood when her dragon stopped her. _The blood of an elf must never touch the blood of a human. It will tip the balance of nature. Then him and any offspring would be dangerous. _'But he needs blood or he will die' said the Elf lady. _Then let me give him my blood. It would be disastrous of elf and human blood mixed. With the Speed, immortality, magic and the intelligence of an elf combined with the strength and stubbornness. The result will be an unstoppable being. No, I cannot let that happen. _So the dragon bit off part of its skin just below the knee and let it drip into a bucket that the Elf had take off the dragon. The blood was collected and when the bucket was full she gave it to Gabriel. She made him drink the blood. He began to look much better than before. The color coming back to his face and his eyes opened. He looked at her in wonder. 'Thank you for saving my life. How could I ever repay you?' Gabriel said in awe at her beauty. 'Don't thank me thank my dragon. Spellfire, he was the one that gave blood for you.' Gabriel looked at the dragon and thanked him. The dragon nodded in acknowledgment. Gabriel fell in love with the Elf as did she for him. They left together on Spellfire's back, due to the fact that the Orcs stole away Gabriel's horse. So, many years later they had children. Spellfire was not pleased by this, for the children had the blood of an elf, human _AND_ dragon blood. One night while everyone was asleep, Spellfire went into the nursery and took the babies twins and flew off to the dark mountains of Glandor and never returned. The couple were distraught when they found out that their beloved children were gone. The Elvin woman, who's name was Serrina, was even more upset when she found out that her dragon had disappeared. Gabriel tried to calm Serrina down, but she just went mad with grief. She died a couple days later. Gabriel couldn't stand loosing his family. He left the village in which he lived in and lived as a mercenary. He didn't care who hired him anymore. He would willingly serve anyone who would pay enough; even the most twisted of hearts could gain his services. He vowed to slay the dragon that took his children and the life of his wife. He eventually died serving Lord Gardraêls twisted madness as the commander of his evil army."

Alicia sniffed and tried to prevent tears from pouring out of her eyes. "Poor Gabriel. He went mad over the death of his wife and the loss over his children."

"What happened to the children and the Spellfire? Did they ever get found?" asked Flyt

"Well, yes and no. See Spellfire raised the children in the wild, and from there the kids became the first of the Dragonkin."

"What were their names?"

"There was a boy and a girl. The boy was named Troven and the girl was named Lyla."


	4. Shadows of death Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: A Dragon and a Secret revealed**

Alicia got up and thanked Wyrvan for the story. Wyrvan went back to playing chess with Flyt as Alicia went back upstairs. She took out the egg and looked at it. Then she felt it getting warmer. She looked at it in a funny way and saw a crack appear on the egg. Then it started to split open with more cracks running all over the egg. Alicia then dropped the egg in surprise as it began to shiver and shake. It landed on the bed and a shard of the egg flew off the shape of the shell with an arm petruding out of the shell. Alicia screamed as the whole shell exploded and bits of the egg flew all over the place. Sharp shards of the shell hit her face and dug deeply into her cheek. She fell over in shock as she saw, where the shell once was, a red dragon standing there, still for a bit, then began to move it's head around to examine its surroundings. When it laid eyes on Alicia it seemed to try can communicate with her. Alicia looked at it in wonder, until she felt a pain on her cheek and felt the wetness of her blood dripping down her face. She put her hand on it to see how badly the cut was, which wasn't too bad. She traced the scratch until she hit a sharp object embedded in her flesh. Alicia carefully extracted the fragment and threw it onto the floor. She then looked at the dragon, which in turn looked back at her. Alicia heard Flyt and Wyrvan run to her room _Delayed reaction …_ she thought, but ignored their presence. All she looked at was the little dragon before her. It was small for a dragon, but still had the requirements for a dragon, strong muscular limbs, a sharp spaded tail, razor sharp claws and teeth, beautiful glittery scales and two beady golden eyes. While examining the dragon she didn't notice the 2 boys come into the room,

"Were did you get the dragon Alicia?" Flyt asked

Alicia opened her mouth to say, but thought better of it and closed her mouth, but her brother didn't care, all he did was scratch the dragon under the chin. She saw Wyrvan look at the dragon in a strange way, a way which Alicia found strange. Alicia started towards Wyrvan when she heard a sneeze and Flyt gave a little yelp. They both looked at Flyt and tried to stifle giggles when they saw Flyt's sleeve on fire. Flyt was panicking and took out a small vial of water from his pocket. He poured all of its contents onto the sleeve and the fire went out. At this stage Alicia couldn't hold it in much longer, she laughed so hard at Flyt's pissed off face, Wyrvan however wasn't laughing. He was looking at the dragon with interest now. Alicia stopped laughing when Flyt punched her in the shoulder and she gave him a cold look, which didn't last very long, because she took one look at Flyts singed sleeve and began a fit of giggles. Gently picked up the little dragon in the palm of his hand and looked at it in all angles, but with the dragon squirming in his hand Wyrvan found it difficult to look at it very carefully, but after a while he confirmed the type of dragon it was. He turned to tell Alicia and saw the two siblings in a fistfight.

"IT'S NOT FUNNY!"

"Yes it is…ha ha… you scratch the flame gland and…ha ha… you triggered the sneeze"

"That was an accident!"

"Sure, sure… he he. Ow!"

"Now will you SHUT UP"

"Ok, Ok"

The two finally stopped fighting and got up with bruises and scratches. Wyrvan stood impatiently as Alicia fixed her shirt so that it didn't show too much and Flyt pulled up his pants to hide his underwear. When they were straightened out Wyrvan let the dragon down on the floor which it went straight to Alicia. Alicia picked it up and let it rest on her shoulder. Wyrvan was about to tell Alicia, the type of dragon it was and how immature they were for fighting over an accident when Alicia left the room to find a salve for her cut. Wyrvan hurried after her into Flyts room, where he found her rifling through the shelves for Apsin. Wyrvan tapped on her shoulder and she whirled around in surprise, knocking 2 bottles from the shelf, which crashed onto the floor spilling liquids everywhere. Flyt ran into the room and saw the mess. He stared in horror as the 2 liquids made contact with each other and ran out of the room in a hurry.

Alicia, Wyrvan and the dragon looked at each other and then at the floor. They could see that the area the where two liquids combined began to turn dark. Alicia began to get nervous and started to bold when something grabbed her foot. She screamed and fell to the floor, trying to grab something in vain. She looked down at her foot and saw a vine twirled around her foot pulling her into the dark mass. She saw Wyrvan closed his eyes and began to glow. Alicia ignored him and tried to untangle the vine coiling around her foot. She screamed when she saw the vine dragging her closer to the liquid, which is now a mass of vines twirling and whipping around with a large flower in the center of it all. She saw that the petals acted like a mouth and razor sharp thorns lined the inside of the petals. The Flower wasn't a beautiful color as you would expect it to be, but a disgusting green color with black stripes racing from the tip of the petals to the back of the flower. Alicia was panicking now. She saw the flower looking at her direction with its mouth wide open as if ready to swallow her. She screamed and waited for the end, when she heard two loud roars in the tiny room. Alicia opened her eyes and saw the roof of the room completely destroyed and another dragon almost full height rear up and lunges at the plant growth, ripping it to shreds. She saw the vine grabbing her snap and she pulled free. Alicia back up against a wall and watched in amazement as her dragon tears at the flower, and the bigger dragon ripping apart the vines. Then she heard Flyt come into the room and saw that he was holding a bucket of bluish-clear liquid and splashed it onto the plant. The plant seemed to dissolve in contact with the water and began to wither, but instead of the usual brown shriveling, the plant started disappearing into black smoke which rose out into the evening sky. The dragon stopped clawing at the plant as soon as all of the remnants of the plant disappeared. It stood there staring at the dark spot of what was left of the plant and began to change. Slowly it began to glow a golden hue and began to shrink. It changed shape as it shrunk from a dragon slowly to a human form with wings. Once it was fully into human form it the glow slowly began to fade and all they saw was Wyrvan, standing there smiling happily, flapping his dragon wings. All Alicia could utter was "Oh my lord"


	5. Shadows of death Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Traveling and a long lost note**

Alicia stood there in utter disbelief. She had heard the tales of the Dragonkin many times before, but she never actually seen one, well no one has in ever since Lord Gardraêl went mad, and yet. She rubbed her eyes, trying to make sure that she wasn't imagining it, but there he was. Wyrvan began to laugh when he saw Alicia's expression, utter disbelief. He then whistled and Alicia's dragon flew straight to him and perched onto his shoulder. Alicia looked at Flyt and expected to see him also stunned, but he was cleaning up the mess using a yellow liquid that mixed in with the mess and evaporated, leaving nothing behind.

"Are you going to name your Dragon?"

"Oh, right, but first what type of dragon it?"

"First of all It is a she. Second of all with a dragon this size, I think it is a Shrike."  
"A Shrike?"

"The second smallest species of dragon next to minor dragons. It is born small, but depending on the way it is raised, it will grow to a different size. For example, if the dragon was raised as a slave then it will stay small, but be very ferocious, unattached, and will always thirst for vengeance. However if it was raised with lot's of love then it will be very loyal to it's master and will protect him or her at all costs."

"Oh, well thank you for your information. As for the name I think I will call her um… Pepper."

_**Oh thank you Alicia. **_

Alicia jumped back as she felt the words popped into her head. She saw that Pepper was sniggering. Alicia slowly went to Pepper with curiosity. Pepper stared at her in a curious manner. Wyrvan let Alicia pick up Pepper gently and Alicia set Pepper down onto the floor. Pepper went to Flyt and licked him on the face and he cringed as he felt the heat from Peppers breath hit his face. Wyrvan folded his wings under his shirt and left the room. Alicia saw him leave, picked up Pepper and followed him.

"Wyrvan where are you going?"

"I'm leaving. I thank you for letting me stay here, but my quest takes me far. I cannot…Wait. Do you hear something?"

Alicia listened carefully, but heard nothing. "What's wrong?"

"I hear people coming into the house" Wyrvan whispered "And I think they're armed."

Alicia listened carefully again, and heard people coming into her house. Quietly she went into her room and slid her sword out of her sheath. Then she told Pepper to be quiet and stay in her room. She then got Flyt and saw him with a pouch filled with throwing knives and throwing stars. Alicia saw Wyrvan unfold his wings and look at her, with glowing golden eyes. Wyrvan was holding a shield as well and threw it at Alicia. She caught it and slipped it over her arm. With a nod Wyrvan morphed from his human form to dragon form and Alicia saw that it was a smaller dragon than what she saw fighting the plant, but it still had sharp claws and tough scales. He let out a roar and flew down the stairs and saw that there were 5 soldiers. 3 sentries and 2 swordsmen. Alicia ran down the stairs and slashed with her mother's sword. The swordsmen targeted wyrvan and the soldiers aimed for Alicia. Alicia had to duck, parry, block, slash and stab to avoid getting killed. 2 of the soldiers were armed with pikes and the other was armed with a scimitar. Alicia dealt one of the pike man with a blow to the head with the butt of the sword and stabbed the other through the stomach, which he grunted in pain and fell to the floor. Alicia turned around just in time to see a scimitar arc down at her head. She blocked it with her shield and slashed at the soldier, but missed. As Alicia looked around the room she saw that the swordsmen were dealing Wyrvan heavy blows to his flank and ran to help him. One of the swordsmen was about to slash down onto Wyrvan's neck, but fell over all of a sudden. Alicia looked around puzzled and saw Flyt at the top of the stairs with three throwing stars in his hand. She smiled and turned her attention to the last swordsman, but saw that he was lying on the ground severed in half. She looked around for the final soldier, without luck. She signaled Flyt to come down from the stairs, and headed outside to get some fresh air. She needed to get air after a fight. The stench of blood still lingered in her nose when she heard something thump in the bushes. Alicia turned around in surprise and carefully walked to the bush with her sword raised. She saw that it rustled and was about to strike when she heard coughing. Flyt came out of the house with a blade up and ready and strided to the bushes. Alicia parted the bushes ready to strike and saw that it was Wyrvan, unconscious and bleeding. Flyt gasped and rummaged in a bag. Alicia stared, dumbstruck. Flyt shoved Alicia aside and took poured liquid onto a large slash across his chest. Then he grabbed a bandage and wrapped it around Wyrvan's torso. Alicia was worried, not knowing what to do she looked up at the window and saw a bow aimed at Flyt's head. She was about to shove Flyt aside when he put a finger to his lip and in one swift motion flicked a throwing star straight at the window, not looking up from his work the whole time. Alicia heard it hit the soldier with a _SHINK _and saw the bow fall right beside Wyrvan's unconscious body.

"Flyt we can't stay here anymore. We have to leave."

Not looking up from his work he replied in a calm tone. "Why?"

"Because soldiers just stormed our house, and we have a Dragonkin in our care."

"So?"

"So, we have to take him away and leave our home behind."

When Flyt finally looked up Alicia saw that there was an expression of disbelief. "Where would we go after we made sure that he is safe? There is no where to go afterwards. If the Emperor is attempting to catch the Dragonkin then how are we suppose to avoid the soldiers? The continent is crawling with them."

"Hmmm…… Wait a second."

Alicia went over to a soldier and tore off its sleeve. She looked at the crest and showed it to Flyt.

"Look at this. This isn't the crest of the Emperor. It looks like it's a skull and a crossbow." Alicia giggles. "Skull and Crossbow. Ingenious idea. I think this is the mark of lord Gardraêl. He has a thing for death and crossbows."

"So that means that the Emperor is not trying to kill us. So where are we going to go?"

"I don't know." Alicia said biting her bottom lip. "Most likely we will have to live in the mountains. Gardraêl would never search there."

"He won't, but minions will. I have heard rumors that he is coming back into power using undead and other feared creatures to add to his depleted army."

Alicia hung her head and pondered. She heard Wyrvan groan and hurried over to him. She saw that the bandage had helped stop the blood from flowing to freely, but he lost a lot of blood. However it wasn't crimson red blood that she saw, but rather golden yellow color that stained the bandage. Wyrvan opened his eyes and tried to get up, but fell back with a grunt. Alicia motioned Flyt to help him up and they both supported Wyrvan into a standing position. Alicia looked for Pepper and felt her presence in a rose bush. She called her over, which she obliged. Pepper came from the side of the house, but what a surprise Alicia got when she saw how big Pepper was. Pepper had grown a by a large amount over the past few hours, from the size of a chicken now about the size of an elephant. She gaped at Pepper and Pepper looked back with a smirk. Alicia snapped out of her trance and began communicate with Pepper once again. _Do you think you can carry Wyrvan?_

_**Of course, but it will be strange. It will be like carrying a wounded dragon on my back. **_

Alicia nods and, with Flyts help, lifted Wyrvan onto Pepper's back where the spines haven't developed yet (right between her wings). Then they added some more ointment onto his chest on top of the bandage so that the wound would absorb the medicine. Soon they were ready to leave, but….

"Alicia, where are we going?"

"There is a map back in the house. I can go get it."

"Right. Don't forget to bring food as well."

"Oh right."

Alicia ran back into the house to find the map of Fyrla. She ran into her room and took it out from the book shelf. She was about to head out when she remembered her necklace. She went to her wardrobe and looked in the box. Sure enough there was the necklace. Alicia took out the necklace and tied it around her neck. She looked around to see what else she could use. She saw a bag and took it to fill with provisions for the oncoming journey. She peeled back one of the floorboards and took out a bag of money that she saved. Over 30 golden coins and 10 silvers. She put that in her pocket. Then she looked around to see what else to bring with her, nothing. So she headed to the kitchen and emptied out all of the cupboards and drawers. She stuffed all of the food into her bag and headed outside to find Flyt sitting on the ground playing with the sword that he picked up from the ground. Flyt looked up and got up.

"Ok, great. We can now go, open up the map and we can decide where to go."

"Alright."

She opened up the map and studied it carefully. Tracing her finger over mountains and pointing at cities. Then she looked up at Flyt who was busy studying the map.

"I think that Baelstram is a good place to start. It's close and enough and we could gain access to the market there."

"But it is crawling with soldiers and we won't have enough time to tell which one serves Lord Gardraêl and which one is loyal to the emperor."

"Oh right. So that means we have to find a village to live in."

"There is a village off in the mountains. It's called Shrite. We can move into there temporarily."

"Alright then, but it is going to be a long journey."

"A couple of days do not seem that long. Daddy went to the mountains to battle Ogres once. He came back about 8 days later. So that means about 4 days to travel to the village, but on dragon back it would probably take half as long."

"Sounds fine to me. Now you have to wait for me. I'm going to grab some vials that we are going to need for the long journey."

Flyt ran back into the house to grab a few vials. Alicia sat down onto the ground and waited for Flyt to come back.

_**Well that went well. So we are going to go to Shrite?**_

__"Yes. Just make sure that you don't drop our Dragonkin friend."

_**Don't worry. I'll treat him like another of my kind.**_

__"Technically he is another of your kind."

_**True.**_

__"Are you hungry? I have meats in my bag if you want."

_**Its ok I can hunt deer and elk while we travel. They are much more filling than the meat that humans prepare and eat. **_

__"Alright."

Alicia sat for a little longer when she heard the crash of glass and Flyt grunting. She ran back into the house and saw Flyt sprawled on the ground, vials everywhere. Worried she shook him until Flyt moved. He moaned as Alicia hauled him upright.

"What happened?"

"I tripped over something." He looked down and saw that it was a loose floorboard. "It looks like a loose floorboard."

Alicia bent down and looked at it carefully. She then lifted up the floorboard and saw something in it, a bag of coins, a beautiful gold crusted dagger, two throwing stars that glowed red and a note. Alicia took out all of the items and read the note.

_Dear Alicia and Flyt,_

_If you two found this note and all of these item, that means that you have found our gifts to you. These were original birthday gifts but, because you two have found them. Either we are out or we are dead. There are 3 items in here not including the note. The first item is my dagger from when I was a young girl. It never misses its target when you throw it and it is as strong as the Excalibur, so it won't break. That's for you Alicia. The second item or items are your fathers throwing stars. They were specially crafted so that they will never miss, always hit the area intended and will fly back into your hands. Those are for you Flyt. The final items are 2 rings; they are rings with a gem in the middle of each one. The red one is for Alicia and the blue is for Flyt. They are special rings made from moonstone. Keep them; they act as keys to the secret of the Dragonkin. Hope to see both of you soon. _

_Love _

_Mother and Father_

Alicia folded the letter and looked at the array of items and saw that the rings were missing. She searched the small cavity where she found the items with no luck at all. Flyt pushed her aside and put his hand onto the side of the cavity and pushed something. All of a sudden the 2 rings popped up from the cavity and landed onto the floor. True as the letter said there was a red one and a blue one. Alicia picked up the red one and the blue one to look at. Flyt grabbed the blue ring and jammed it onto his finger. Alicia gently put her ring onto her middle finger and felt something tingle in her palm. Flyt got up and picked up the vials on the floor. They then headed outside to find Pepper waiting with Wyrvan strapped to her back.

_**Are you 2 ready?**_

_Yeah we are ready we can go now._

Pepper nodded, knelt down and Alicia and Flyt mounted onto her back. Alicia patted Pepper's neck and they flew away from the only place that Alicia and Flyt ever knew.


	6. Shadows of death Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Pepper gets uncooperative**

Flyt looked around nervously as Pepper flew to their destination.

"Alicia?" he asked nervously "How long are we going to be stay here?"

She turned her head around and gave a reply, but it was lost into the wind.

"WHAT?"

Her mouth opened again, but the rush of the wind stole her words again. Flyt didn't bother asking again, because he knew that his question was going to get lost again. He clung onto one of Pepper's ridges for dear life. Trying to prevent himself from throwing up over Pepper he tried to look at something to distract him. Flyt looked around and only saw clouds and the sky; he tried not to look down, but couldn't resist a peek. He slowly tilted his head down at the landscape and almost hurled when he saw the sheer drop from Pepper and the ground. Alicia turned her head around and saw the ting of green on Flyts face and laughed. Flyt reached into his bag and took out a small vial with a cork plugging it in and he fumbled with the top. He managed to get the top open and tried to drop 2-3 drops into his mouth, but with the wind he choked on 6-7 drops that flew into his mouth. Flyt gagged and dropped the vial. Alicia saw the vial drop and signaled Pepper to turn around and drop lower. She flinched and blinked, but obeyed and Alicia managed to grab it before it fell onto the ground. Pepper flew back on course towards the village Shrite. Flyt felt better a little bit better, but still felt airsick. Wyrvan began to stir and Flyt jerked in surprise almost falling off the dragon. He managed to stay on Pepper just as she banked down to a clearing. As soon a Pepper landed Flyt jumped off and ran to puke all that was worth. Alicia got off of Pepper and went to see what was wrong. She saw that there was something wrong right under her eye. She tried to examine the wound, but Pepper swung her head at Alicia and let loose a menacing growl at Alicia. Alicia stopped looking at the wound and jumped back when she caught Pepper's growl. She was shocked that Pepper would Growl at her. Alicia wanted to find out what was wrong with Pepper and prodded her mind to find out what was bothering her. If it wasn't for her Dragon & Rider bond she wouldn't have been able to figure out what was wrong with her. As she scanned her mind for the problem she saw through the eyes of a dragon. The beauty of the landscape and the thinking of Pepper overwhelmed her and she almost fainted, but she managed to press in deeper and found the problem. A cursed dart was lodged in between 3 scales under her eye and biting into Pepper's flesh irritating her greatly. Alicia tried to forge deeper into her mind to find the person responsible for shooting the dart, when she came across a barrier of light. She tried to go around it when she felt that she was being pushed out of her dragon's head. Alicia tried to push, but Pepper was stronger and shoved her out of her mind. Alicia stumbled backwards and fell onto her ass. Flyt ran to her and tried to help her up. She didn't resist, but kept her eyes trained onto Pepper with a puzzled look. Pepper gave her a menacing look and turned away, resting her head onto her forearms. Alicia went to check on Wyrvan, who was squirming like crazy. She released him from his bonds and he fell off onto the hard ground floor.

"Ouch!" he opened his eyes and smiled weakly "You two just had to drop me didn't you"

They smiled sheepishly and apologized. Wyrvan tried to get up, but fell back. Flyt fished out some vials from his bag and gave them to Wyrvan. He drank the concoction and fell back to sleep. They laid him down onto the floor and let him sleep. Flyt looked at the sky and saw that there was a lot of light so he tried to get onto Peppers back, but Pepper just flicked him off and took off into the skies. Flyt fell down and landed down on Alicia hard.

"Oof! Hey get off me Flyt, your crushing me"

"Sorry, Pepper flipped me off for some reason."

"Yeah she started to behave like that when we landed"

Flyt gave her a strange look, but didn't say anything and she was glad about that. Alicia looked at the sky and tried to coax Pepper to coming back, but she refused and stayed circling in the air. Alicia could detect the confusion and the anger coursing through Pepper and she wanted to help, but Pepper was blocking most of the connection between rider and dragon. Other than a few loopholes Pepper was completely blocked off from her rider. Alicia sighed and picked up all of the things on the floor. Then she went over to Wyrvan to wake him up. He woke up grumbling and got up. Both Flyt and Alicia helped him up and supported him as they began the long trek towards the village.

Pepper was lost. She wondered what was happening and tried to orient herself, but some part of her kept pulling her away from her task and the way she growled at Alicia and flicked off Flyt shamed her, but felt satisfied at the same time. She winced as the felt the dart scratch her flesh. She was so frustrated. She wanted to help to Alicia and Flyt, but somehow she just couldn't. They would have kept going onwards to the village, but she just refused to let anyone on her back. Pepper remembered the urge to throw Wyrvan off from her back and shook her head in disgust. She tried to remember when she began to feel this way towards her friends and all she got were fuzzy images. She shook her head and forced herself back towards the clearing where she landed in and searched for her companions. When she got there she saw that they had left. She searched left and right, but saw no sign of them. Pepper tried to contact Alicia, but couldn't open the connection between the two bonded. She tried the force it open with as much effort as possible, but some part of Pepper pulled her away from the connection. She pushed herself into a corner of her mind while struggling to stay sane at the same time. Feeling the frustration build up inside of her she couldn't hold it in any longer. She thrusted her head into the air and let a loud roar rip from her throat until there was no more breath in her. She struggled to keep her emotions under control, but her anger, hatred, lust and greed couldn't be put down. Pepper was beginning to go mad. She scratched her face where the dart was lodged between her scales, but stopped when she felt some irregular growth where the dart was lodged. She gently put her claw onto the growth and scratched it and let loose a roar at the pain that came away from it. On her claw she saw black residue. Pepper began to panic and took off to find her rider, but was led to a lake. She was puzzled why she brought herself here for she wasn't thirsty. She slowly peeked over the edge of the lake, and saw in horror that there were large sharp black crystal like growths on the small area where the dart was. She saw that only in a matter of minutes there was about a centimeter of the stuff. She saw that the small area of crystals made her whole face look fiendish. She worried that it would spread and didn't know what to do. Large fat tears leaked from the side of her eyes and dropped into the lake causing ripples distorting Peppers reflection. Pepper couldn't bear it anymore and took off with tears streaming from her eyes. She tried to contact with Alicia, but the communication was blocked off by some strange force. She pushed with all of her might, but a part of her just said

_Don't try to force it open_

_**I have to. I need help I need comfort I NEED MY RIDER**_

___No. Let the anger fuel you. You don't need them._

_**Yes I do. She needs me and I need her.**_

___Let her go she is of no use to you._

Pepper just ignored the voice and continued to push through. She managed to force the block open for a small amount of time when it closed over again. During the time she opened it she found out where Alicia was and managed to touch her conscious, then the hole closed. She snorted with frustration, but was as distressed as she was before for she found out where the party was. She managed to keep her behavior in check before she went to find them.

_**I'm coming back. I'm sorry Alicia. I'm sorry my Rider.**_

Pepper ignored the small conscious nagging at her and trying to take over. She was determined to find her Rider and forged on, isolating the small conscious in a prison of steel.

_**Oh how I wish I could teleport straight to her. It would be so much easier that flying there.**_

Pepper closed her eyes and tried to vision the place where she last saw her rider, brother and friend. She tried to concentrate hard, and felt a tingling feeling all over her body, but then sighed for she knew that there was no use. She also felt a searing pain on the left side of her face as if it exploded. Pepper grunted and tried to find away to dampen the pain, without luck. She flapped her wings only to have them hit branches and tree bark. Pepper opened her eyes and found herself in the same place that she saw Alicia in. She looked around franticly, but saw nothing. She then lied down to try and sleep and think, but the pain kept her awake. She could feel it burn through her skin spreading across her face. Soon the whole of the left side of her face was burning with intensity. She somehow knew that the she, no the creature in her mind was connected to the growth and rushed at it with a force so strong it would have destroyed any human. She felt contact, cold and hard like steel, and clawed at it with all of her might. The Thing tried to control her again, but the pure loyalty to her rider and the anger towards it was enough to overpower the Thing in her mind and it vanished without a trace left of it. She could feel the burning of the growth cease and the spreading stopped around the bottom of her skull, completely consuming the left side of her head. She was out of breath and opened her eyes again, when she heard voices coming towards her.

"PEPPER!! Oh my gosh where have you been? And Oh god. What happened to your face?"

Pepper didn't reply, but closed her eyes and let her mind wander to the Dreamworld for a little bit before she joined her rider once again.

Alicia was struck dumb. She heard Pepper's roar, felt her sorrow and pain, but couldn't figure out what caused her to go ballistic. Flyt came up to her and noticed that she was shivering. He covered her with a jacket and she turned around and nodded her thanks. Flyt smiled and went to check on the supplies and Wyrvan. Alicia looked up and saw how dark it was and went to find Flyt. She found him reapplying the bandage on Wyrvan's chest and went back to check on Pepper. Pepper was sound asleep curled up in a ball. Not wanting to wake up Pepper she grabbed a blanket and lay down on the ground and joined Pepper in the Dreamworld.


	7. Shadows of death Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: The plague**

Once morning arrived the four comrades got up and pack up. Wyrvan smothered the fire from the previous day and got ready to fly. After Alicia applied a medication to Pepper's face she mounted her dragon and checked to see that her weapons were all in check and called to Flyt

"Oy Flyt when you are done call me and Pepper and I'll let you mount up. We are going to patrol ahead."

"Alright" called back Flyt "but you might want to do something about Pepper's face. I don't think painkillers will help Pepper gain back her red scales and golden eye."

Peppers eyes went wide and she turned her head to Alicia who tried to make shushing jesters without Pepper seeing her.

_**What's wrong with my eye? I thought only the scales were ruined.**_

___Well, the crystals ravaged the scales, and left your eye untouched, but something altered the coloration of your eye from golden yellow to a deep crimson and your pupil is an ugly green._

Pepper sighed and drooped her head. Flyt wanted to apologize, but Alicia shook her head. Tapping her heals onto Pepper's side she took off into the sky scouting ahead to find the village of Shrite. As they scanned the forests they noted that there was a chill in the air. The fact that it was strangely quiet bothered them, no birds twittering in the air no animals rustling about in the trees or bushes, even the trees looked yellow and withered. Even though the sun was beaming down on them they felt that the air had just gotten very cold.

_Do you feel that?_

_**Yes. Everything seem so… Dead**_

___Yeah, like everything died or something like that. _

_**We must get back and want Flyt and Wyrvan.**_

Without a second thought, the dragon and rider headed back to the campsite, but found no trace of Flyt or Wyrvan.

_**Where do you think they have gone?**_

___I think they began to hike down towards the dead zone._

_**The what?**_

_The place that seems dead. I call that the Dead zone. _

_**Let's follow the tracks. **_

They landed in the campsite and followed the trail where the two boys headed off. Alicia and Pepper followed the trail until they hot to a clearing. There the tracks stopped and were replaced by large dragon tracks. Alicia put her hand to her mouth and gasped. Pepper Felt her emotion and snorted in disgust.

"No. Did a rouge dragon snap them up? What do you think Pepper?"

_**No. Look at the tracks. one set of footprints seemed slightly scorched as if something hot hit it. I think Wyrvan became a Dragon and Flyt Mounted him. **_

Alicia nodded and mounted Pepper again and looked for Flyt and Wyrvan. As they flew on for another couple minutes, they suddenly heard a sharp unearthly screech in the distance. Pepper stopped and headed towards the noise with Alicia urging her faster. As they got closer to the sound they saw 3 small shapes darting around a larger shape. As they got closer they saw that the larger shape was Wyrvan in Dragon form and Flyt mounted on his back, throwing stars at the smaller shapes. Which seemed to be smaller versions of a dragon, with a thick serpent like tail instead of legs and two massive wings that rarely flapped. They darted at the Dragonkin and young boy trying to sink their teeth into the two beings flesh. Alicia quickly urged Pepper to go in for the attack. Alicia unsheathed her sword and when Pepper got into the battle Alicia sunk her sword into one of the creatures flank. She yanked it out and saw the thing Screech in pain. It turned towards her. She thought that Pepper would focus on this one, but was busy engaging another one. As the serpent creature closed the space between them Alicia went into a stab position ready to strike. It's head reared up to strike. As the head came closer to Alicia to gobble her up she closer her eyes and stabbed it under the jaw stabbing through the bottom of the mouth and straight through the top of it's head. Alicia yanked the sword away from it's head and saw its lifeless body plummet down to earth. She saw Pepper grab one of the creatures wings and severed it from it's body. Pepper spat the wing out and watch both the wing and it's owner fall down into the trees. They went to look for the third one and saw it in Wyrvan's mouth. They went to find a clearing in the forest, but only saw dead trees and dark shapes traveling in and out of the trees. With the thing in Wyrvan's mouth they saw that there was a mountain range straight ahead. Alicia shouted something to Flyt, but the wind snatched the words, leaving Flyt confused, so Alicia pointed to the mountain range. Both Flyt and Wyrvan nodded in acknowledgment. They then headed towards the mountain range as fast as possible. They looked down and saw how dead the whole place looked. Trees were stripped down to their branches with leaves scattered all over the floor, and creatures littered all over the floor, from squirrels to birds to bears to rouge dragons. Alicia shook her head. There was plenty of space for them to land, but death was littered all over the place. Finally they reached the end of the forest where they landed. Wyrvan spat out the limp body of the creature and changed back into his human form, folding his wings under his shirt. Alicia looked at it carefully. She saw that this used to be a dragon, but the fact that there weren't any legs or arms told her otherwise. It was a long body, with only wings attached to its body. The immensely muscled structure told her that it was very strong. She then went to it's head, which she saw that it was very similar to that of a snake. Long fangs in it's mouth and small serrated teeth arrayed neatly among the line of the mouth. It's tongue was also long and it seemed to be covered with a thick saliva. Alicia tried to look for it's eyes, but surprisingly there were none. Where eyes would be were folds of skin covering ghostly white eyeballs. Alicia fell backwards in shock and looked at Flyt, who was just as shocked as she was. Wyrvan was sitting on a rock away from the serpent eating pinches of salt and pepper, in a vain attempt to eliminate the vile taste produced by the creatures. Alicia laughed when she saw the look of disgust on Wyrvan's face. She and Flyt went over to help poor Wyrvan get rid of the taste. Flyt took out a small vial of liquid and gave it to Wyrvan. He gratefully accepted it and gulped it down. He smiled and gave Flyt back the vial, who took it and stored it into his pouch. Flyt went back to the carcass and dubbed the creature the Slytha. After they settled things and Pepper came back from scouting told them to keep heading west over a massive lake then they would have to go fly for another 2-3 days then they would have reached the village of Shrite. They nodded and Wyrvan Changed again into Flyt's temporary mount and Pepper let Alicia mount her. Then they headed off towards the lake, leaving the carcass of the Slytha behind for scavengers to enjoy.


	8. Shadows of death Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Sibling love**

They flew over the mountains at a smooth pace so that that they wouldn't miss the village. As they flew on Alicia wanted to communicate with Flyt as much as possible, but the wind would take away their words as soon as they left their mouths. Alicia decided to mind speech with Flyt.

_Hey Flyt_

Just then she remembered that mind speech only worked between the rider and dragon. She was surprised when Flyt replied back

_**What?**_

___Oh, I didn't know that you can mind speech_

_**I can't. Only when you communicate with me then you can read my thoughts. **_

___Really? Well sorry for prying in your thoughts._

_**It's ok your my sis.**_

___Thanks Flyt. _

**If the 2 of you don't mind, me and Wyrvan are going drop down. Both of you should duck your heads to avoid getting hit by the arrows.**

_What arrows Pepper?_

At that moment a small volley of arrows came from a small cluster of houses. Wyrvan and Pepper dropped lower to avoid the small volley of arrows and the two riders ducked down. They then landed close to the cluster of houses where people began to rush out armed with a large assortment of weapons, from swords to daggers to pitchforks to sticks to rocks. Alicia dismounted Pepper and Flyt did the same with Wyrvan and they had their weapons drawn. They saw that the whole horde of people stood in a crowd and one person armed with a long-rife and a sword stood out from the rest. Alicia and Flyt assumed that he was the leader of the village. They saw that the man was very muscular and his head was completely bald. They were surprised to see that there was a long scar running down from his ear to his neck where it disappeared down his shirt.

"What do you want from us? The plague have scoured the whole country, the shadow lord visited us and slained our two best warriors and now Dragon riders from the Empire have come to take out money. We're poor enough as it is."

Alicia sheathed her weapon and slowly stepped up to him with Pepper watching their every move.

"We haven't come here to hurt you in any way, we weren't even going to come near your small village until your archers shot at us. I should be asking what you want."

The man faltered a bit and the rest of the village began to murmur and mumble. They where obviously nervous that a young girl like her would be able to stand up to their chieftain. Then the man stood up taller and looked down at Alicia. Pepper snorted and gave the man a look of anger and when the whole of the villagers saw Pepper's disfigured face they all began to look nervous. All of the younger defenders took off in a hurry and the people who stayed began to shake. The leader began to look uncertain and had his sword in ready position, ready to strike if Pepper attacked. Alicia turned around to Pepper and shook her head. Pepper looked away, but her rider could feel the displeasure of the men and wanted to leave. Alicia sighed and she turned to back to the man.

"I'm sorry for wasting your time, we will be off now and in the future do not shoot at things you are unsure of."

Alicia mounted Pepper and Flyt did the same sheathing his blades as they two dragons took off. Flyt then tried to mind speak with Alicia, but got no effect. He sighed and just kept on riding Wyrvan's back until they reached the lake. All of a sudden Wyrvan lurched back and Pepper dove down towards the ground, no that wasn't right. The ground was all blue and smooth like a mirror, no they were flying over a lake. Flyt watched in horror as he saw Pepper and his sister fall towards the water. Wyrvan suddenly went stiff, folded his wings and began to plummet towards the water as well. Flyt was in a panic now. He yelled as they plunged closer and closer towards the water. Suddenly Wyrvan began to relax and opened his wings, catching the air in his wings they began to hover over the water. Flyt looked around for his sister and her dragon, but saw nothing. Wyrvan began to fly as far as possible to find a shore, All of a sudden they saw Alicia and Pepper flying in the air. They flew up to them and noticed that there was something wrong. Pepper was soaking wet and Alicia was unconscious on her back. Flyt then saw something in the water. A small Island in the middle of the massive lake. He signaled Pepper and Wyrvan to drop down towards the island and landed. Pepper also dropped down and landed in front of the pair. Flyt hurried to Alicia and brought her down from Pepper's back. He saw that she was very pale and she was very cold. He was worried that she drowned, but he could feel a weak pulse on her neck. He was about to take a vial from his bag when Pepper put a claw on his chest and spoke to him.

_**She does not need any more liquid in her system**_

Flyt frowned, then realized that she meant to pump out all of the extra water from his sister. He knelt down and was about to put his mouth over hers when he paused. This was awkward, like kissing my sister.

_No it wasn't like that I am saving her life, but what would she say when she sees you touching her breast. I'm not touching her breast I'm pumping the water from her body. I AM SAVING HER LIFE!!!_

He took a deep breath and put his mouth on hers and let it out. Then he put his hand on her chest and pushed down 3 times and with every pump a small amount of water came out from her mouth. He then took another deep breath and let it out into Alicia's lungs. He then pumped her chest again 3 times and more water came out than before. He then took another deep breath and let it out into Alicia's lungs again. She coughed and more water came out of her mouth. Then she was still and opened her eyes. Flyt breathed a sigh of relief and she smiled weakly.

"Don't you ever brush your teeth?"

Flyt smiled at her and gave her a big hug. She embraced him as well, but then all of a sudden they heard Pepper snickering and wyrvan also trying to suppress a laugh. They both Let go of each other and Alicia checked to see if all of their supplies were still there and intact. She threw away the soggy bread and all of the other food. She was about to throw away the meats when Pepper nudged her Alicia gave her the meat and Pepper happily gobbled it down. Wyrvan, in human form, helped clean out Alicia's bag from anything that might have slipped in when Alicia was in the water.

"Pepper?"

_**Yes Flyt?**_

__"Is Alicia going to be ok?"

_**Don't worry about her. Alicia will recover, just as long as she doesn't move for a couple of days. **_

__"But, we have to get going otherwise it will take longer to get to the village."

_**She can ride on my back. Just like Wyrvan did. Then we can make good time there. **_

__"Alright, but I think we can rest here. I doubt that anything would come here and attack us."

Pepper walked off and then took off into the air. Wyrvan and Flyt walked on the island to look for things to use to make a fire, but the island was bare, with only grass and small deposits of gunpowder. Flyt thought about using the gunpowder to use to make a fire, but remembered how explosive it was. Soon the went back empty handed with Alicia wrapped in a towel shivering as the wind blew. The three of them then looked for a soft patch on the ground and then nodded off to sleep.

The next morning Pepper was back, and she looked very tired. Alicia was feeling much better than before, and Flyt and Wyrvan had enough rest to go fishing. They fashioned fishing rods out of long branches that Pepper brought back from her scouting trip, and tied string to the end to make the fishing rods. They challenged each other using different baits to try and lure fish. Flyt managed to catch 3 trout with worms, but Wyrvan caught a sturgeon, with his bare…claws.

"You cheated."

"Did not."

"I can't fly and dive bomb a sturgeon like you can."

"That's true, but that is still fishing."

"We agreed to use baits."

"And I did. I used a little bit of out meat and dropped it into the lake."

"But… wait I think… SHIT I hate it when you do that."

Wyrvan laughed, unfolded his wings and flapped them. Flyt grumbled and packed up the fishing rods. Wyrvan folded his wings and helped Flyt to pack up the fishes, although Wyrvan had to carry the sturgeon to the other side of the lake. They went back to Pepper who was wrapped around a sleeping Alicia, keeping her warm. Flyt tapped Pepper on the flank and she looked up. Flyt jumped back when he saw her face, the crystal growth always made him nervous no matter what.

"You know you are going to have to do something about the growth. It makes you scary. You have to do something about that, like maybe cover it with a bandage or maybe even coat it with a spell, something. Will you do that?"

_**Hmmm… you are right. I have to cover the crystals or else people will be frightened of me, of course it will be quite useful in battle, but since I don't have any magic, then I have to cover with something, maybe a dragon helmet. That would certainly cover the ugly scar. What do you think?**_

__"Yeah. A dragon helmet would work, but where are we going to get it?"

_**We are going to have to find a blacksmith if we are going make a dragon helmet, and we need money. Alicia dropped a lot of gold coins when she went underwater. **_

__"Don't worry I have lot's of money."

Flyt went to wake up Alicia, who had most of her rosy complexion back. Alicia grumbled and got up.

"Do we have to go?"

"You know, as the younger brother I should be the one saying that."

Alicia rolled her eyes and mounted Pepper, all of a sudden she went into a massive coughing fit and almost fell off. Flyt scrambled up Pepper and went to help Alicia by pounding her back to get rid of the leftover water. Then Alicia managed to calm down and she nodded her thanks. Flyt then dismounted Pepper and hopped onto Wyrvan's back, who fell face first onto the floor.

"Oof. What the hell are you doing?"

"Oh sorry Wyrvan I thought that you were in dragon form."

"NO you nitwit. I would be at least 3 times this size. If you sprained any of my wings, I swear you are **screwed** got that?"

"Sorry about that." Flyt mumbled

Wyrvan shoved him off and Flyt rolled on the ground. All the while Pepper and Alicia watching and laughing at the show. Once Wyrvan tested his wings he turned into dragon form and let Flyt hop on. Wyrvan the grabbed the sturgeon and headed off into the night with Pepper trailing behind.


	9. Shadows of death Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Alicia's grief **

As they flew off on over the lake the two dragons were struggling to keep control from the incredibly strong winds pushing and pulling at them. Wyrvan almost dropped the sturgeon 3 times. Eventually the winds died down and Pepper started to relax. Soon the four companions began to notice that the ride was too easy. They began to get uneasy as they kept flying. All of a sudden a huge gust of wind caught them off guard and nearly knocked Alicia off Pepper's back, but swept poor Flyt right off of Wyrvan's back as they struggled to gain control again. Alicia screamed as she saw Flyt plunge towards the raging waves. Pepper and Wyrvan banked right to try and find the boy. They scouted the waves, without luck. Pepper almost got clipped by a strong wave once, and Alicia almost fell off Pepper's back as well. Alicia was crying and screaming Flyt's name constantly. Pepper and Wyrvan gave up search, for they were getting tired now with the wind forcing them down towards the waves and the waves reaching up to grab them. Alicia was screaming for them to turn back to find Flyt and pounding Pepper's back just to turn and keep looking, but the two dragons kept course towards shore using the last reserves of strength. At last the winds died down, but the waves were still moving high and low. They managed to reach shore and flopped onto the beach exhausted. Alicia was clinging to Pepper's neck with tears streaming down her face. Flyt was all that she had left. The loss of her two parents were bad enough, but to loose her only brother devastated her. She wanted to jump into the lake and drown herself, but the sheer exhaustion and the bond to Pepper kept her from attempting suicide. Once all of them had managed to regain their strength Alicia got off Pepper and sat away facing the forest edge, Wyrvan changed back and went to consult with Pepper.

"What should we do? Alicia is devastated. She already lost her parents, then she had to leave her home, NOW she lost her only brother. If you died as well Alicia would have no reason to live anymore."

_**There is nothing much we can do except try and comfort her. She has lost so much in this life time. A home and a family. I on the other hand have lost very little. I only have lost my complexion and my sanity for a time. **_

__"I can relate to Alicias condition right now."

_**You can?**_

"Yes. I lost my family as well. Only my one of my brothers and one of my sisters is alive. All of my family, my home, my friends gone. They all died under the hands of Lord Gardraêl and evil wife, Laura Brunda. The foul women sent the troops to exterminate us. They stormed the mountains where I lived in and slayed my father while he was crafting a vase out of magic for my mother. Then they came into my house and killed my mother and my newborn brother next. My siblings and I were playing chess in the other room and there were 5 of us. We heard the noise and scrambled to hide in the trapdoor, but one of my brothers tried to distract them while we snuck through the trapdoor and went out and went dragon form against the forces. Although he killed many of them he was eventually shot with a crossbow. The rest of us were running for our lives in the tunnels. We managed to get out, but came across many archers. We changed and took off, but they shot one of us down leaving the three of us. Then I got shot in my wing and fell, that was when I met Flyt and Alicia."

_**My goodness, I didn't know how much you suffered. I'm sorry. **_

__"Don't worry about me. Right now your Rider needs you now."

Pepper sighed and lowered her head. Then she went to Alicia and curled up around her. Alicia just shifted her body to a more comfortable position as Pepper tried to calm her down.

_**I'm sorry**_

___It's over. I don't think that I can go on. Now with Flyt gone, I don't know what to do. It was Flyt who kept me alive after my parents went missing. _

_**Oh. Well you have me. I know I wont replace Flyt in your heart, and I know that I am also disfigured, but I'll always be here for you.**_

_I know that thank you Pepper, it's just that Flyt meant a lot to me. All those times when he was little we played under the big apple tree, and Flyt always worked his magic with medicines and remedies. Our family never got sick. Once a dying old man came to our door. Flyt kind enough to offer him to live again, but the man said no. 'My only wish is to die without suffering' said the old man, so Flyt whipped up a potion that reduces pain, and let the old man die peacefully. And one time my mother was dying of the plague and Flyt saved her life. I'll miss him a lot._

Alicia sniffed as she recalled all of the events that Flyt and her did together. Pepper was beginning to understand her rider's grief, for her emotions were pouring out into Pepper and she was about to let large steamy tears roll out of her eyes when Wyrvan went up to Alicia and gave her a hug. She squirmed a bit, but then relaxed as Wyrvan slowly let go of her. Alicia then got up and went to the water's edge. Pepper uncurled and took a step forward, worried that Alicia was going to commit suicide, but Alicia's thoughts told her otherwise. Alicia bent down and took a spare blade she looted and stabbed it into the ground all the while tears pouring like a waterfall. She then took out 3 throwing stars that Flyt gave her and put them overlapping in front of the sword. Then she used her mother's dagger and inscribed something in the sand:

_July 15_

_This is where a young boy died. His stars mark the lake that stole him. Let whoever read this message be warned that whoever crosses the lake faces death and sorrow. They young boy was named Flyt, and I will not forget my dearly beloved brother_

_DragonRider_

_Alicia_

Alicia got up after she scribbled on the sand and headed off to her other companions. Pepper nodded and Wyrvan looked solemnly at Alicia.

"I can't stay here any longer. The memory if the lake will always trigger the loss of my brother."

"We have to leave now. If we are going to make good time to the village."

Pepper nodded again. This time Alicia looked at Pepper and said

"Thank you Pepper, thank you for standing by my side."

_**You're my rider. I have to. My love for my rider is stronger than life.**_

__"No don't say that."

_**It's the truth, but we should get going, The sooner we get to the village, the sooner I can see a blacksmith or a wizard.**_

Alicia understood what she meant, but Wyrvan was confused.

"Why would you need a blacksmith? I understand the wizard part, but shy a blacksmith?"

_**Flyt suggested getting special dragon armor for my crystal face. **_

__"Oh, ok then let's go."

So Wyrvan changed into dragon form and Alicia mounted Pepper. Alicia took out her compass and a map and directed them to go north. Then they left the beach leaving the painful memories of Flyt behind.


	10. Shadows of death Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: A detour and the village**

As they flew on they noted that the countryside was much more beautiful than the dead side. The sound of life made them feel comfortable and the feel of the soft wind blowing on their face calmed their hearts. Alicia looked around her and felt much more relaxed, although her chest tightened and tears leaked from her eyes at the memory of loosing Flyt. She shook her head and breathed in the air deeply. She sighed as the sweet smell of pure air entered her lungs. She took another deep breath but gagged when she breathed in a small cloud of smoke. Pepper and Wyrvan also smelled it and they turned to avoid the smell, but the black smoke was everywhere. It made Alicia gag and cough like crazy and Wyrvan was sneezing nonstop, but only Pepper was unaffected by the smoke somehow. Since the air was so polluted with smoke the three of them had to land in order to breathe again. Pepper and Wyrvan dived down and tried to find a clearing. They soon found one and landed neatly on it, Alicia got off of Pepper and coughed for all was worth. She then wiped her eyes for they stung and tears were leaking out. Pepper looked up and saw that the smoke was everywhere, but she managed to trace it all the way down to a certain point on the forest area. They decided to rest here for a bit and clear their lungs from the foul smoke. Pepper whipped her tail and accidentally grazed Alicia on the cheek. Pepper then turned to Alicia and saw the cut. Alicia was stemming the flow of blood from her face and looked for something to patch it up with. Wyrvan gave her a salve, in which she smeared it all over the cut. She closed her eyes and grunted in pain as the salve did its work. Pepper moved her head around, scouting the area to look for danger . Then suddenly felt something hop onto the space between her wings and her neck. She whipped her head to the thing that was on her back and saw Alicia there with a clear substance on her deep cut and she was smiling, a spaced out smiling. Pepper was confused at her smile and saw in her mind that she was remembering Flyt and what he would do in this situation. Pepper let out a deep sigh and looked around for Wyrvan. She suddenly noted that he was gone. She whipped her head around and checked for sure that he was missing and not just playing around with her. When she was sure that he was missing Pepper began to worry.

_**Alicia! Snap out of your daydreaming. Wyrvan's gone. Either the other Ra'zan took him or he went scouting. I need your help. **_

___What can I do?_

_**You have powers, like I do. I think yours was that of a Telepath. **_

___So what can a telepath do?_

_**They reach out their minds to try and find a certain person, well that's what I know of dragon powers, not so sure how it works with humans.**_

___How would you know this? You haven't met any other dragons other that Wyrvan, and even he isn't fully dragon. _

_**Dunno, instincts I guess. **_

Alicia closed her eyes and reached out to try to find Wyrvan. She managed to catch Wyrvan's mind, but it slipped from her grasp. She tried again and managed to get a hold of his mind. He didn't seem to notice her latch on or he just ignored her. Alicia accessed his mind and saw where he was. He was following the smoke, but he was hiking through the forest with a dagger in hand. Alicia couldn't tell what part of the forest or what direction he had gone. She let go of his mind and went back into her own consciousness. Pepper looked at her.

_**Well?**_

___He's hiking in the forest looking for the source of the black smoke. I can't tell where he is, but I know that he is closer to the source because of the thickness of the smoke in the air._

_**How far do you think he is?**_

___Not very, by the looks of the smoke from here. _

_**Alright then. Hold on tight and close your eyes. **_

Not understanding what she meant, Alicia closed her eyes again and felt a tremor wrack through Pepper and had a tingling feeling coursing through her body. Then finally the tingling stopped and Alicia slowly opened her eyes. What she saw amazed her. In front of her was a blacksmiths shop. She could tell by the sign hanging over the front door. Suddenly she head a grunt and saw the bushes rustle. All of a sudden a blade slashed through the brush and Wyrvan came through. He muttered to himself, looked up and froze. Pepper was grinning and Alicia was looking just as dumbfounded as Wyrvan.

"How the…What the…" sputtered Wyrvan

Alicia was speechless and could feel that Pepper was enjoying this. Pepper then turned her head towards the blacksmiths shop.

_**That's the source of the black smoke. How convenient, when we need a blacksmith we get one. **_

__"But how did you get _here_?" questioned Wyrvan.

"Yeah, I would like to know that as well."

Pepper shrugged and replied.

_**A simple Teleport. Don't ask how I did it, I just did. I think it is the power of a dragon rider. **_

Wyrvan look confused, but the meaning dawned Alicia and she nodded.

"Dragon riders have special powers between them, but only if they have bonded. I have the power of a Telepath and Pepper can Teleport."

"Oh."

Alicia looked curiously at him, but then shifted her attention to the blacksmiths shop, which stopped spewing huge clouds of smoke. Alicia looked at the door and saw that the light dimmed. She went towards it and knocked three times. She heard the scraping of furniture moving across the floor and heard a man grumbling.

"Good lord, who would come here at this hour. I hope it isn't another one of those stupid soldiers, using my house like a bar."

He opened the door and saw Alicia standing there. He frowned and said in a gruff tone.

"What do you want girl. I don't have time to make a skinny bracelet. Unless you have come here to help me with the forge then I will have to say good night to you.'

"No I don't need a skinny bracelet, nor am I here to help you. Actually we stumbled here by mistake, with the smoke in the sky it was difficult to fly."

The man narrowed his eyes.

"You were flying? How? And who is this 'we'?"

"Oh I'm sorry, I forget to introduce you to my dragon and my friend"

The man's eyes lit up in surprise when she said the word 'dragon'.

"Dragon? Are you a dragon rider?!"

_**Yes she is.**_

The man jumped and looked behind Alicia to see Pepper and her gleaming eyes. He gulped and when he saw the crystals on her face. He looked even more nervous.

"Um…(gulp)… What is it that you need? I could always spare some time from my tea. Do you need a new sword? Or a shield crafted for you? Oh I know how's about a hunting star?"

"No actually I need-

_**-she needs or rather I need a dragon helmet for my disfigured face. **_

The man nodded and let Alicia in the door. Alicia thanked him and entered with Wyrvan following behind. The house itself was net very big. In the kitchen was a small stove, a table with three chairs around it and a small basin for washing dishes. The man let them to a door and stopped.

"Here is the forge. Now the stuff there, are either hot, sharp or dangerous. I don't want you to hurt yourself so it would be best if you didn't touch anything. If I need help then you can help me, but otherwise don't touch anything. Alright?"

They all nodded and the man took out a key. He then inserted it into the lock and twisted the key. The door opened and the man pushed it open.

"You didn't tell us your name Mr. Blacksmith."

"Oh right I'm sorry. The names Mathew."

They followed Mathew into the room and Alicia and Wyrvan's eyes went wide in amazement. The room was huge compared to the house. In the center of the room was a large anvil with a hammer laid across it. Across the room was the forge about two times the size of Alicia herself and a large assortment of items were hung on the wall beside it. Shelves lined the other two walls and they were stacked with all sorts of things, from tongs to whet stones to unfinished swords and broken handles. Off to one corner was a large desk with lots of equipment scattered all over the place and a beautiful sword in the middle. Alicia went to look at it and reached for the blade when a huge hand grabbed her wrist and she wheeled around to see Mathew giving her a cold stare.

"I told you not to touch anything. That blade is dangerous and it hasn't cooled yet."

"Sorry" she mumbled "but why would it be dangerous? It's just a sword."

"No it isn't. It is a special blade which I crafted and repaired many times, but only I can forge it. It is completely created from metal and magic. If you or anyone else touches it will cut you deeply and you will loose a lot of blood. It is meant to kill. I have used against the foul undead and the idiot ogres who come storming in, but I don't want you to die."

"Magic? How can you do magic?"

"I'm part wizard. I'm a half-breed. My father was a wizard and my mother was…is a mortal. I inherited my mother's skill of a blacksmith. She was very handy, with things."

"If you are half wizard then you have knowledge of integrating."

"Limited knowledge yes."

"Well then I was wondering if you could make face armor instead and integrate an illusion spell to make it look like Pepper, my dragon, had a normal dragon face instead of the crystals crusted on her face."

Mathew scratched his head and shrugged.

"I think I can. I'm used to making cloaked items instead of illusions. Though the problem is I'm going to have to see…Pepper is it? ... Yeah? Pepper's face in order to accurately slip it over the crystals. Thank god that it is simple pattern so I don't have to dent a hole for every crystal that was growing on her face."

"I think we are going to have to go outside."

"It's ok I can go outside and look carefully. That's all I need. I have a very good photographic memory."

So they left the room and headed outside to see Pepper, who was resting on the floor. Alicia called to Pepper in her mind and her eyes flared open. All three if them flinched as Pepper gave them a cold stare. Then she began to laugh at the expression of their face.

_**What can I do for you?**_

__"Well I was wondering if I could see the crystals so that I could craft you a face armor to hide the disfiguration."

_**Be my guest, but you are forbidden to touch them. It burns when it breaks, like cutting off a part of your own flesh with a dark crystal blade, slowly and painfully. **_

Pepper bent her neck lower so that Mathew could see the evil growth and click it onto shape. Then he thanked Pepper and headed back inside. Alicia patted Pepper on the right side of her face and followed Mathew and Wyrvan inside. When they got into the room Mathew told them to wait outside until the armor was completed. They complied and waited in the kitchen. Alicia and Wyrvan waited listening to the clanging of metal and sound of the forge. When they looked outside they saw that the sky was black with more smoke. Alicia sat down onto a chair and sighed. Wyrvan looked in drawers to find something of amusement. Wyrvan found multiple decks of cards and took them all out. He then put took two cards and made a triangle out of them. Alicia raised an eyebrow and Wyrvan shrugged.

"I'm so bored I'm making a pyramid of cards. Wanna help me?"

"Sure."

So they spent the next couple hours building, repairing and redoing the pyramid. All of a sudden when they were about to put the last few cards onto the pyramid they heard a loud clang and Mathew cursing loudly. They slipped and the whole pyramid fell into a heap, but they were more concerned with what happened in the forge room. They went to the door and saw that it was slightly opened. They went opened the door and entered to find Mathew clutching his hand. They wondered what was wrong, until they saw the terribly scorched and bruised hand.

"What happened?"

"I was hammering the dents into the armor when my hammer slipped and hit my hand then I dropped the armor and fell backwards, putting my hand into the forge. Shit"

"Ouch. Do you think you can finish the armor today?"

"Not with my hand in this state."

"Is there anything we can do?"

"Well I was almost finished, just needed to make 3 more dents then coat it over with the illusion magic to re–enforce the spell and deflect any projectiles that hits that area. _That_ I can do"

"Alright, but where do we make the dents and how deep?"

"Bring it here and I'll mark it. The hammer hits exactly how deep I want it to go, but since I'm not using it. I'll write the depth there as well."

He wrote the depth and marked the spot with a pen. Then he gave Wyrvan the hammer and Alicia a nail with a blunt end. Wyrvan lifted the hammer as Alicia line the nail up to the mark. Wyrvan saw the depth and hammered the nail once getting the exact depth he wanted. Then he repeated the same thing with the second and third mark, then handed the armor back to Mathew and put the tool back onto the table. Mathew then put his bad hand over the armor and muttered a few words, but Alicia could see the pain in his face and words as his hand began to glow and a streak of light coated the armor. Then he stopped and Alicia saw that the armor was really tough, but yet very flexible. Tapped it here and there, while being careful not to hit her hand onto the sharp spikes.

"Thank you Mathew, but won't everyone see the armor?"

Mathew shook his head and said "No. it will look like normal armor when not worn, but once worn it will make it look as if nothing happened to Pepper. The difference from any other illusion armor it that it will feel like the scales of Pepper's instead of the sharp crystals covering Pepper's face, also it will make Pepper feel comfortable."

"Oh excellent. Now we can continue off to the village."

Mathew sighed "Well thank you for helping me. I really thank you. If only you could have healed my hand as well. Oh well. I could use some extra hands like you boy. You really have a nak for this."

Alicia turned to Wyrvan and saw that he had an uneasy look on his face.

"You know I really want to stay here. I like it here and Mathew seems like a nice guy. That's ok right?"

"That's up to Mathew."

"Absolutely…But first I would need your name… er… what should I call you?"

"Wyrvan"

"Wyrvan, strange name for a boy."

Wyrvan smiled and Alicia said goodbye and went to find Pepper with the armor in hand. Alicia helped Pepper put on the armor and mounted Pepper. Alicia explained what happened and Pepper nodded understandingly. Then they headed to the village with the newly added armor and her two other companions left behind.


	11. Shadows of death Epilogue

**Epilogue**

"So that's what happened to me before I came to the village. I lost my brother Flyt and my friend Wyrvan was became a blacksmith apprentice."

Equidor looked at Irf and Irf looked at Alicia, who was looking at the floor. Then Irf looked at Equidor and looked back at Alicia. Equidor was wondering what he was doing, then he suddenly asked the most peculiar question.

"So, um, how old are you Ellie.. I mean Alicia?"

"I think I'm 14 or 15."

"Equidor?"

"Um…13 I think. Why?"

"Do you remember how you got here Equidor?"

"Not really. I just remember finding myself on a bed soaking wet and my father Halton mending me. He also gave me a bag full of throwing stars and knives."

Alicia looked at Equidor in a funny way and Irf slapped his forehead.

"OH! OH SHIT! IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE NOW."

"What dose?"

"Don't you two see?"

Equidor and Alicia looked at each other and said at the same time.

"No we don't"

"Tsk...tsk…tsk you two are thick."

Alicia smacked him on the head and he rubbed the place she hit him.

"Equidor, can you get the bag of stars that your father found?"

"Sure it will take a few minutes."

Equidor left the house and headed to his old house. Minutes later he came back with the bag of stars and most of his weapons. Then he gave Irf the stars and Irf scanned through them all and found what he was looking for he took out two stars that glowed a slow red pulse. Alicia gasped and Equidor just starred at them.

"What are you doing with Flyt's stars?"

Irf shook his head and said

"No Alicia. Is Flyt dead?"

"Yes he plunged to his death over the lake."

'Wrong. I even bet that Equidor has Flyt's ring. No Alicia Flyt is very much alive."

"No, are you sure about this?" Alicia whispered

"WHAT ARE YOU TWO TALKING ABOUT?"

"Oh really Equidor are you stupid or just ignorant?"

"Alicia what does he mean?"

"It means... Oh you're alive Flyt! My god Flyt, Your ALIVE!"

Equidor looked stunned, and then all of a sudden all of his memories came at him in a rush. Riding Wyrvan, falling down into the lake, hitting the surface and finally knocking his head onto a rock. Alicia hugged him hard and Equidor hugged her back.

"Alicia, my sister. I will never leave you again."

"I know you won't Flyt. I know you won't."

_**The End of book 2**_

_**To be continued in: Black gates**_


	12. Black Gates

Black Gates

**Prologue: The Shunned**

Arc-tan was a Ra'zan. He used to be part of a tribe, now shunned by it. His curiosity cost him his family, friends, and his home. Oh how he cursed the Elders and how he hated the chieftain. He let the hatred in him boil at the memory and flicked his tail at anything within his range. He felt something land on his shoulder and turned his head to see his minor dragon Fanta resting on his shoulders. Arc-tan smiled and relaxed slightly, but the anger in his body was still boiling. Suddenly he heard a loud rustling sound and took his frost spear from his back and held it up. Fanta flew down and hid Arc-tan's bag. Arc-tan heard another rustling from his left and turned to find another Ra'zan standing there with its soul reaper ready. Then another Ra'zan bolted from the cover of the brush and rushed Arc-tan. Arc-tan quickly turned and aimed the frost spear at the oncoming Ra'zan and it ran straight into the frost spear skewering it and freezing it at the same time. The other Ra'zan took the opportunity to strike and leaped from the bushes, with the Soul reaper raised. Arc-tan quickly swung the frost spear so that it arced and slashed the other Ra'zan in the chest. It grunted and fell backwards landing hard onto the floor. Arc-tan grabbed its soul reaper and threw it into the underbrush. Then he put his foot onto the Ra'zan stuck on his spear and pulled back the spear causing the dead Ra'zan to drop onto the floor. Then he pointed the tip of his spear at the remaining Ra'zan and stabbed it in the neck. Arc-tan pulled the blade of the spear away and wiped it clean with a cloth used to repair the frost spear if any damaged has been caused. Arc-tan then clipped it back to his back armor and bent down to the dead Ra'zan and examined its armor.

_**Hmmm… The emperors foul work. Veteran commander Fav-loto. **_

_Why would they try and kill us? We weren't in the vicinity of the tribe village._

_**I think the emperor wants my head on a spear and brought to him. You know how traditions are. Kill the persecuted to avoid any more problems.**_

_I think the emperor is retarded. _

Arc-tan laughed and continued on with his journey. He kept walking and through the forest and opened the bag to let Fanta out. His dragon flew out and sat on his shoulders to look for anything useful that he can use to make weapons of any sort. Fanta is a teal minor dragon and is a special case. There are two possible powers that each color can use and minor dragons only have one power, however Fanta has two powers. He has the mind of en inventor and is capable to use weapons, on his scale, and engage in battle. When he was hatched he quickly bonded with Arc-tan who became his best friend, now his only friend. Arc-tan was also a special case, for instead of being born with the usual warrior's touch, he was born with the mind of an inventor. This caused much disturbance amongst the Ra'zan tribe and caused him to be shunned by most of the people. However he had managed to make some friends, and his family tried to change him into being a warrior. However they tried, he never really got the hang of being a great warrior. Oh he did learn how to fight, and he was excellent at fighting, but he only fought when he was asked to or when he needed to defend himself. He didn't fight for the fun of it, but rather fought when he needed to. This caused his parents worries and they went to seek the aid of one of the Elders Far-Feyla. Far-Feyla tried to change the young Ra'zan, but he never fought for real. He would never attack except when he was attacked first and he would spend most of his time in his room creating things. The elders and the chieftain called a meeting and decided to 'cast out' the young Ra'zan and kill anyone who opposed. Naturally the orders were taken and his parents and friends were slained. The Arc-tan put up a hard fight, but broke off and sprinted off the tribal grounds. It's been about a 13 yeas since he was born now and Arc-tan was considered fully grown. He still was furious at his tribe, for they had never really been nice to him and always gossiped about how unperfect he was. He swore that he would kill the chieftain and gain control of the tribe casting out the Elder and sending her to another village. He sighed, for that was just wishful thinking. He knew the chieftain was almost 20 years older than him, more experienced, higher morals and stronger than him as well. He sighed as he continued hiking in the forest. All of a sudden the trees ended and he came across a large a plain. He scanned the plains and saw that it was almost empty. Arc tan looked at Fanta who looked around. Then Fanta dived into Arc-tan's bag and came out holding three throwing stars and a bandana on his head. Arc-tan laughed at the getup and checked to see if his armor was still intact and the force shield he invented was strapped to his wrist. He put two fingers onto a button and pushed down. There was a shimmer of energy and an outline of a circle surrounded the button just as Fanta threw the stars at the Arc-tan. He quickly lifted the shield and deflected all three stars at the same time. He picked up the stars and tucked them away into his bag, deactivating the force shield at the same time. Fanta then went to perch onto Arc-tans shoulder and went back to scouting again. Then they headed out onto the plains unaware that they were being watch from high above.


	13. Black Gates Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: The Deep Plains**

Flyt, Alicia and Irf had everything packed up and were just about to leave when a young boy ran up to Flyt.

"Are you Equidor?"

"Yes, well no, but… yeah I suppose so."

"Oh well I have bad news. Your father is dead."

Flyt paled and was speechless until "Flyt? Are you ok?"

The boy frowned "Flyt? I thought his name was Equidor."

"It's complicated."

"Ok. Are you ok Flyt? Or Equidor? Either one."

"Um… I think I should sit down. Halton is dead? My god, he was like a father to me."

The boy looked at him clearly puzzled "I thought Halton was you father."

"No. He was my foster father. He took me in when I had no where else to go."

"Oh well no hard feelings then. He was killed in a raid on his way back from the market. Bandits killed almost everyone."

"Oh well. I have to move on; I can't always stay here and mope."

The boy nodded and left them. Flyt sighed and went to check on Spellfire who was talking with Pepper. Not a word passed between them as Flyt mounted up. Alicia mounted Pepper and was about to take off when Irf hopped onto Peppers back. Flyt looked at his sister in a peculiar manner and she shrugged. Finally, after checking that they had everything they needed they headed of away from the village to find try and find Lord Gardraêl's castle. As they took off they saw that the villagers were pointing up at them and waving. Flyt, Alicia and Irf waved back and all the villagers cheered. That put a smile on all their faces and they laughed. It made them all feel so happy that they were able to save the village from death. Once they were far from the village they flew across large patches of forests. Flyt felt comfortable riding Spellfire, compared to when he had to ride Pepper for the first time. He remembered how sick and nervous he was and compared himself to now. Now he was riding Spellfire without any problems, no sick feeling.

_Probably because he is my dragon and I'm his rider. _

_**That would be one reason, another is that you are used to riding a dragon.**_

___What did I tell you about reading my thoughts?_

_**Sorry, it's just so hard to. You think to loudly.**_

Flyt sighed and closed his personal mind from his dragon, who was digging into the navigational part of his mind. Pepper smirked and turned her head towards the young dragon and apparently said something. Flyt really wanted to hear what she was saying, but remembered what he said about digging into personal thoughts. Eventually he couldn't resist and peeked into Spellfire's mind. He heard, or rather felt Pepper speaking to Spellfire and Flyt at the same time

_**I told you he couldn't follow his own rules. **_

Pepper snickered and directed her thoughts to Flyt

**You currently owe me dinner. **

_WHAT? Why?_

**Because me and Spellfire had a bet that if you pry into his mind you owe me dinner instead of me going hunting and if you didn't then I would have to make dinner for all of us. So you owe me 3 deer, 2 elk and a moose. **

_ARE YOU CRAZY??? That is to many things for you to eat not to mention hard to get. Moose are scarce and deer are fast._

_**You can manage. I know you can.**_

Flyt sighed again kinda pissed off that Spellfire and Pepper made a bet without permission. Then noticed that they were no longer flying over the forests but rather was flying over the Deep Plains. Flyt looked over Spellfire's side and saw that the Deep plains was well below water level. All of a sudden he spotted movement in the tall grass. Flyt couldn't make it out, so he signaled Pepper and Alicia to go lower. They dived a bit and kept at a hover about 50 feet above the ground. Spellfire also dived lower and Flyt made out a humanoid shape in the grass. Thinking that it was a huge man with a strange armor he dipped lower and saw it was a Ra'zan with a creature of some sort resting on his shoulder. Spellfire snarled and aimed himself at the Ra'zan and hurled himself at full force at it. Flyt was yelling at Spellfire to stop and Pepper tried to block him, but she was to far away. The Ra'zan suddenly turned around and jumped. This took Spellfire by surprise and went straight under the Ra'zan who landed on his back. Flyt whirled around in surprise and the Ra'zan grabbed Flyt. Alicia, Pepper and Irf were rushing to get to the struggling group, but were to high up to reach them. The Ra'zan then threw Flyt down into the Plains and grabbed Spellfire by the neck. Alicia produced a javelin from her back and threw it at the Ra'zan before it could break Spellfire's neck. It sunk into it's shoulder and the Ra'zan roared, slackening it's grip from Spellfire who proceeded to fly upside down. It lost it's grip on Spellfire and fell onto the plains and fell heavily on the floor. Spellfire then took a deep breath and was about to roast the Ra'zan when Pepper landed on top of Spellfire, knocking him on the floor as well. Spellfire then hit the floor with a loud THUMP and felt dazed. Pepper, Alicia and Irf landed on the plains and headed off into different directions. Pepper went to restrain Spellfire from killing the Ra'zan; Irf took out his frost spear and pointed it at the Ra'zan's neck to keep it from doing any more damage. It's dragon darted from the air and threw a star at Irf who blocked it with a ice shield. Alicia went to Flyt who was lying on the floor in pain. She helped him up and brought him to Spellfire, who was struggling under Pepper's grip. Flyt looked at him in anger.

"What got into you?"

_**It's a Ra'zan. They are demons of the earth. They will gladly kill for honor. They wouldn't care if the creature is innocent or guilty. Any reason to kill is good enough.**_

__"But still. They are beings. They have a conscious. By killing a Ra'zan ruthlessly it makes you no better than they are."

Spellfire stopped struggling and then looked away from his rider. Flyt looked away and headed to the Ra'zan.

"What are you doing here? What does Lord Gardraêl want now?"

The Ra'zan replied in a gruff and icy tone.

"I don't serve this lord. My allegiance lies with my tribe, elder and my chieftain. All of who have banished me. They will willingly kill me because I am different."

"What do you mean different?"

"I was born as what you people would call as a defect. I had the physical appearance of a great warrior, but my mind was only on thinking and creating, instead of mindless killing. This displeased my Elder and they banished me."

"Oh. I'm sorry about that, how long have you been banished?"

"About 4-5 Years. I am a freelancer. I am able to fight, but only by self defense."

Alicia went to the Ra'zan and pulled out her javelin and then saw that there was a strange sign on his shoulder right under where she hit. I looked like a circle with a dot in the middle and an arrow across the center. She gently touched it and felt that it was burnt into his skin, as if he was branded. Alicia suddenly arched her back and yelped in pain as the Ra'zans dragon sunk a throwing knife in her back. It snarled and ducked as Irf turned to let loose an ice bolt at it. The Ra'zan knocked the spear aside and grabbed his dragon by its wings, looking it in the eye hissing and clicking to it. The dragon then drooped its head and the Ra'zan let go of its wings. Flyt knelt down and was about to extract the blade when Irf grabbed his hand. Alicia moaned when Flyt grazed the blade causing it to shift slightly. Irf grabbed a cloth and pressed it onto the wound, trying to staunch the flow. Then he let the wound freeze over as he gently slid the blade out. Alicia was crying now as the blade slid from her flesh. The cold steel of the blade was slick with her blood and Irf threw it away. The Ra'zan came up with its dragon in its bag. He was holding a vial of greenish-blue liquid and took out the stopper. He took off the cloth and Irf shoved the hand away, but it was much stronger than he was and continued to pour the liquid onto her wound. Alicia cried out as the liquid came in contact with her flesh. Irf tried to knock the vial from the Ra'zan, but Flyt pulled him back. Irf gave him an icy stare, which made Flyt shiver from the cold radiating from the gaze, and Flyt explained that most medicines hurt once applied. Once the Ra'zan emptied the whole vial he threw it aside and took out a bandage from his bag.

"We have to take her shirt off to administer the bandage."

Irf looked at Flyt wide eyed, who looked away. Alicia nodded and tried to take her shirt off and winced in pain as the fabric of her shirt caught on the wound. Irf and Flyt looked away and after the Ra'zan gave her the bandage it also looked away. Alicia asked Flyt to help her to pull the bandage across her back. At first Flyt was reluctant to do so, but after Alicia pestered him about him being the only one trustworthy to do anything around her he caved in and helped her put on the bandage, although he tried not to swivel his head to look at her front body.  
"Oh Flyt. Stop fussing. I'm going to put on my shirt as soon as you finish helping me. It's hard enough as it is. You're going to have to get used to it. Ouch! Watch the cut."

As son as Alicia finished Flyt turned away as Alicia turned around to grab her shirt, but her legs gave away slightly and Flyt quickly turned and helped her. He grabbed her arm and supported her shoulder. Unfortunately he couldn't resist a peek at her breasts and got caught by his sister who gave him a hard slap on the face. Flyt rubbed his cheek as much as possible to dim down the pain, but he knew he deserved it. He picked up her shirt and gave it to his sister, who put it on as fast as possible. Once she was finished Irf and the Ra'zan turned around, once the Ra'zan saw the red slap mark on Flyts face it grumbled and fished out a gold coin and flicked it up. Irf smiled and caught the coin.

"I knew it. Even siblings can't resist small peeks."

"Your sick Irf, you know that right?" Flyt mumbled

"Oh well got some money out of it, right Arc-tan?"

The Ra'zan whipped its tail caught Irf flat on the chest. He fell back onto the grass with an 'oof' and everyone laughed except Spellfire, who was sitting of to the side. Flyt saw him there and went to him. Spellfire nodded in acknowledgement to Flyt and continued to stare at the vast plains. Flyt climbed onto his Spellfire and patted his back. Spellfire let a smile tug at his lips, but he still stood still. Flyt sighed and tried to communicate with Spellfire.

_So Spellfire, what's going on?_

_**Why do you want to talk to me? I disgrace the Dragon Riders.**_

___Why would you say that?_

_**Because I attacked out of impulse instead of a team. I didn't obey your command to stop. **_

___Well I'm sure you had a perfectly good rea…_

_**No. No I didn't. I attacked him only because he was different. Not human. **_

___Well you are only a couple days old, what do you expect? You are young._

Spellfire slowly turned his head towards his rider and gave him a gratified smile. Flyt then gently pulled his horns into the direction of the party. Spellfire then got off his haunches and began to walk back to them. Arc-tan had introduced his dragon Fanta and showed them his gadgets when Spellfire walked into the Ra'zans view. Spellfire bent his head low and apologized. Arc-tan accepted it and packed all of his stuff back. Alicia was starting to like Fanta and Arc-tan, even though Fanta had sunk a blade into her back, but she was quite forgiving.

"Well we better get going. If we stay here any longer we would be putting you in danger. I'm sorry about our behavior earlier, but it was purely out of self-defense." He turned to Flyt "I hope your bruises heal. I am sorry about throwing you to the ground."

Flyt nodded in acknowledgment and shook hands with the Ra'zan, which was strange because his two thumbs curled around his hand as they shook. Eventually they let go and Flyt mounted Spellfire. Alicia mounted Pepper and Irf was about to mount Pepper as well when he turned around and asked Arc-tan to join them.

"I'm not so sure. You will all be traveling by flight of dragon and well…"

"It's ok Irf can mount Spellfire instead and you can mount Pepper."

"It's not that, it's just that, when Ra'zan travels by air we use mounts that you have fought before. The creatures that you fought were corrupted by this Lord Gardraêl. They normally have beautiful blue eyes instead of the death white eyes you saw. Unfortunately these creatures, the Slytha as you call them, fight with dragons and they will kill each other. I do not wish to harm any of you, so until I am sure that my Slytha and your dragons will get along then I cannot come."

"It's ok, I'm sure Pepper can get used to them. She is older and can control her temper and desires."

"Yeah and Spellfire can restrain himself. Right?"

"Of course, just need you to help me that's all."

"Great! I can join you guys in your quest."

Arc-tan took out a peculiar looking pen and pushed the top of the pen. Alicia, Flyt and Irf looked around in shock as they saw Spellfire cringe and close his eyes, Pepper shudder and Fanta grit his teeth until the button was released. Flyt turned around and saw Arc-tan standing there waiting for something. He gave him a 'what is it?' look and Flyt pointed to the dragons. Arc-tan looked in puzzlement and then he understood that the button affected the dragons in a strange way and quickly put it away. All of a sudden Flyt felt a warm breeze of air blow behind him and felt a low growl behind him. He turned around to come face to face with a snakelike face, mouth open with mandibles and a hot repulsive stench reek from it's mouth. Flyt gagged and tried not to breathe, stumbling backwards tripping over a rock. Arc-tan helped him up and then said to them all.

"Everybody! Meet Dersha, my Slytha mount."


	14. Black Gates Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: The thief and the freelancer**

Once they left the plains behind the group flew high above the ground heading east. They Pepper was tempted to lash out at the Slytha but manage to keep her temper in check. Spellfire on the other hand was having trouble to keep his claws from twitching. Fanta was curled up in front of Arc-tan taking a nice nap on Dersha's smooth back. Irf was looking down trying to focus on what was down there, but all he could see were trees. All was well as the group kept flying, until Pepper and Spellfire winked at each other and dived down towards the floor. The three riders yelled in shock as they plunged to the forest tops and then leveled out just 3 feet from the branches and leaves. A bewildered Dersha and Arc-tan came down after them and managed to catch up with them. Pepper soon spotted a clearing and landed down onto the floor with Spellfire falling after. Dersha flared her wings and set her tail down and slowly let the rest of her body touchdown onto the floor as well. Then she closed her wings and gave the two dragons a strange look. Flyt looked at Spellfire and Alicia was trying to figure out why the two of them stopped. Pepper just smiled.

"Pepper why did we stop?" asked Alicia.

_**I'm hungry and Flyt had a dept to pay up.**_

Flyt moaned and took out his long rifle and headed off into the woods. Alicia looked at Pepper and gave her a disapproving look. Arc-tan dismounted Dersha and perused Flyt into the forest calling back as he ran.

"Alicia, Irf! I want you to keep Dersha, Spellfire and Pepper from fighting."

Alicia nodded miserable for she knew that it was difficult to keep the three of them from going into combat and sighed as she thought of ways to keep them busy long enough for Flyt and Arc-tan to grab the food they needed.

Flyt was quietly walking through the woods when he thought that the rifle was too loud so he shouldered the rifle again and took out a bow and some arrows. He notched 2 arrows on the bow and looked around for anything to eat, preferably a deer. Then behind him the bushes began to rustle. Flyt wheeled around and pulled back the bowstring and held it there in case it was a creature that would attack him. The bushes began to rustle some more and when Flyt was about to release the arrows Arc-tan emerged from the bushes with his frost spear at hand and Fanta flying behind him. Flyt relaxed and lowered the bow. Arc tan hissed and nodded, which was his way of saying hi. All of a sudden Flyt saw a deer behind Arc-tan and pulled up his bow and let loose the arrows, which in turn almost hit Arc-tan and Fanta, causing them to jump. The two arrows hit their mark and the deer fell dead a few feet away. Arc-tan gave Flyt a strange look and went over to the deer and shouldered it. Flyt winced when he saw his arrows dig into Arc-tans flesh and offered to pull them out. Arc-tan threw the carcass onto the floor and nodded. Once Flyt extracted the arrows and cleaned them the Ra'zan carried it again and pointed up ahead. Flyt then saw movement and notched the same two arrows and let them loose in the direction that Arc-tan pointed.

Alicia had managed to keep the three fliers from fighting, but she had to keep an eye on Flyts dragon. Spellfire seemed so agitated when he is around Dersha. Alicia had to keep him scouting to prevent him from attacking the Slytha. Pepper on the other hand was co-operating fine with Dersha and even began to make friends with her. They were now helping each other with anything that they needed. Currently Pepper was dozing off under the shades of the trees and Dersha was coiled in the center of the clearing soaking up the sun. Spellfire kept watching for Flyt, Arc-tan or Fanta when he saw someone in the bushes. Unsure of whom it was he dived down and landed on a large branch to observe this person in more detail. He scanned the floor carefully and saw that the person left very few tracks and was very swift. All of a sudden he caught a glimpse of a silhouette running in the direction of the camp Spellfire then took off from the branch and went to the clearing, but he was too late. He saw that the person had entered the clearing and grabbed Alicia's hunting bag. She yelled and Pepper woke up suddenly alert and Dersha slithered to the person. Dersha then coiled around him and held him there the boy yelped as Peppers face loomed closer to him and Spellfire had landed into the clearing. Pepper shot Spellfire a look of annoyance and looked back at the boy. Alicia then came over and grabbed the hunting bag that the boy took and checked that everything was still there. The boy secretly unsheathed a dagger and managed to dig it into Dersha's side. She let out a hiss and relaxed slightly and the boy slipped out with ease. Pepper pounced onto him as soon as he slipped out of Dershas coils. He grunted as he fell to the floor with Pepper's claw pinning him down. Alicia went to him and knocked him on the head. He winced and spat at her. She jumped back and the glob of spit landed onto the floor. Alicia was about to smack him on the head when Flyt and Arc-tan entered the camp. They dropped the food and hurried over to where Alicia was standing.

"Whoa, sis. What are you doing?"

"This sneaky bastard stole my hunting bag."

"I need food. I need to hunt and I need to steal. I can't help it."

"What to people call you?" asked Arc-tan

"Some people call me Sticky fingers while others call me thieving bastard, but my friends call my Rouge."

"You are a thief," Snarled Alicia "a lowly disgusting thief."

"Well that's my job. I steal stuff for other people and get a quarter of the share of a reward, but when I am by myself I only steal what I need, food, water, equipment you know shit like that."

Pepper Growled at him and he shivered.

"Um…Pepper can you stop crushing out captive, it makes me feel uncomfortable."

Pepper reluctantly lifted her claw and the boy shot out from under her and Arc-tan tackled Rouge. They fell in a heap and Rouge froze in fear when he saw the sight of the Ra'zan. Arc-tan got up and picked the thief by the collar and Rouge shivered as Irf pointed the Frost spear at his throat.

"You are not going anywhere." Irf said in an icy tone.

"Right" said Rouge who shivered again "not going anywhere right sir."

"Good, now I'm going to ask you a few questions. Like, why were you in such a hurry when one of our dragons spotted you?"

Rouge paled and struggled to run away, but Arc-tan held him tight and Irf brought the point of the spear closer.

"Answer the question you sneak. Why were you running?"

Rouge gasped as the spear grazed his neck and sputtered "She's after me. If she catches me I'm dead. She is ruthless and will stop at nothing to bring me back."

"Who?" Asked Flyt

"Give me the boy?" came a voice.

They all wheeled around and saw a girl standing at the edge of the clearing with a whip at hand. She had long white hair and deep blue eyes, her lips curled into a devilish smile and her ears were slightly pointed, like Alicias. She was wearing a robe that was blackish blue and a cloak that seemed to shift colors and blend deeply into the background billowing around her and a large blade strapped to her back. She took a step forward and repeated her instructions.

"Give me the boy NOW."

Arc-tan dropped Rouge, who was temporarily frozen so that he doesn't escape, and Irf turned and pointed the spear at the girl. Flyt and Alicia unsheathed their blades and the three mounts turned their heads to the girl and the dragons gave low growls and the Dersha was hissing menacingly. The girl stepped back, but held her ground as Flyt took a step forward and gave a fierce look to the girl and replied in a stiff tone.

"No."

"What did you say?"

"Rouge may be a thief, but I will not let you take him."

"This complicates things a bit." She said as she flipped her whip "I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill all of you if you don't give me the boy you call as Rouge."

"You're awfully brave to take on two dragon riders, a Ra'zan and a Slytha. Of what importance is the thief?"

"He stole something from Lord Gardraêl and I will get it back for him."

"You serve the shadow lord?"

"No fool, I am a freelancer. I my services goes to the highest bidder and the shadow lord has given me a chance to become immortal and 10'000 gold coins."

Then Art-tan walked right up to the girl and stopped about 3-4 paces from her.

"You are the fool. The shadow lord offers immortality, but you must die first. He will then resurrect you from the dead with black magic and take back the money. You become a mere pawn in his war game like all of the other idiots who took the offer. I know because some of my tribe members fell into his spell."

The girl was about to say something but then thought better of it and kept quiet. She pondered about what the Ra'zan said and thought that, that would be the most probable way of gaining immortality, and she didn't want to become a slave to the shadow lord. Eventually she came to the conclusion that she would never serve the shadow lord ever again.

"Hmmm……I see. The shadow lord will stop at nothing to get what he wants, but I need the money. My family is poor and we don't have enough money to pay out depts. My father was a hunter, but the sudden scarcity of deer and elk caused my father to loose business. I am the only one who makes money for the family and now I just lost my biggest income."

Alicia felt sorry for her and took out a bag of money and went over to the girl shoving Arc-tan aside and gave her the money. The girl's eyes widened in surprise and looked into Alicia's eyes.

"It's for you and your family. That's all I have, but your family needs it more than I do. Take it all."

"No I can't accept charity." She said stubbornly

"But your family needs the money."

But the girl shook her head and said "My father used to always say to me to never accept charity. To take for free is nice, but eventually you will come across a lot of dept and you will become like me. So I cannot take it.'

"If you will not take it then at least allow me to be friends with you. I am Alicia."

"My name is Crystal. You are very kind to me. Your friendship is worth more than all the gold in the world and I thank you for that."

Alicia smiled and took Crystals hand and introduced all of the members of the party, who now lost the hostility towards her. When they came to Rouge, who Irf unfroze, he tried to run again, but Arc-tan tackled him and Irf and Flyt dog piled him to make sure that he didn't get away. The girls laughed and went over to the pile. The boys were struggling to keep Rouge from running away, because he managed to swipe a few coins from Arc-tan's pouch. Fanta crawled out of Arc-tan's bag, kinda bruised, chittering and hissing at Arc-tan. Irf and Flyt got off of the Ra'zan and Arc-tan grabbed the thief by front of the shirt and Fanta grabbed the coins that he stole while Rouge tried to grab at Fanta. Arc-tan began to get pissed and started to shake poor Rouge until his teeth began to rattle. Crystal quickly lashed out with her whip and it coiled around Arc-tans arm and pulled back, causing him to loose his grip on Rouge, who dropped onto the floor. Crystal pulled back her whip and whipped it again this time catching Rouge on the foot causing him to trip. Flyt then stepped onto his back keeping him down and then bent down to a really beat up Rouge.

"Why do you keep on trying to run from us? You know that you can't survive long by stealing. Besides you skill might come in handy one day. So I offer you this, join out group and we will pay you in food, water, money and protection. If you decline we will let you go and live the life you are living now. When I lift up my foot I want you to decide. If you get up and bolt then I know that you declined, but if you get up and stay, I know that you agree and we will keep you around."

Flyt lifted off his foot from Rouges back and stepped back. As he expected Rouge bolted from Flyt for the first couple of feet, but then stopped and turned around to look at Flyt.

"I accept your terms, but I have some conditions."

"What are they?"

"I want to get extra loot from wherever you raid and I want your Ra'zan to stop tackling me or roughing me up in any way."

"I can agree with the first condition, but for the second condition, there are going to have to be exceptions."

"Like?"

"If you are under a spell or if you are going to disobey orders."

"Fine."

"That's settled."

Crystal giggled and walked over to Pepper and pet her face, Pepper looked a bit nervous, but Crystal ignored that fact and continued to gently pet her face. Alicia laughed and mounted Pepper. Crystal looked at Alicia in a strange way, but then walked to Peppers side and mounted up. Alicia smiled at Crystal and looked around the clearing to see every mounted up. Flyt and Irf rode Spellfire, while Arc-tan and Rouge mounted Dersha. They all nodded at each other and Pepper took off into the sky, leaving the three dear carcasses behind in the clearing.


	15. Black Gates Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Big bang**

"What happened to the forest down below? It looks so dead, like something killed them all." Inquired Crystal.

"Just like when we crossed to the mountains." Whispered Alicia

"What?"

"That's the work of the Plague. They are the undead that you would have become if you served lord Gardraêl."

Crystal shivered as she remembered the empty soldiers in the shadow lord's courtroom. She shook her head trying to remove the feeling and the look of the undead soldiers and tried to look away from the empty forest down below.

_**Well Crystal, how old are you?**_

Crystal whipped her head up and looked around unsheathing her blade; Alicia looked worried and explained that it was Pepper that was communicating with her. Crystal sheathed her sword and looked at Pepper in a confused expression and Pepper asked again.

_**How old are you Crystal?**_

___Uhhh…16. Why?_

_**You look younger than 16. I thought that you were 14. **_

___Oh, well my mother told me that it was because of……no never mind. _

_**What?**_

___Well, I'm a half breed. My father's an elf and my mother's a mortal._

Pepper snuffed and began to laugh. _**Just like my rider, except that it was the opposite for her. **_

Crystal's eyes widened and she looked at Alicia closely, who looked back and smiled. Crystal looked hard and smiled when she saw that it was true, that the both of them were half breeds. Crystal smiled back and laughed, this time Alicia had a look of confusion on her face. Crystal turned her head and pulled back her hair revealing her pointed ears. Alicia looked in surprise and did the same, smiling and the two of them laughed as they flew past the mountains. On Spellfire's back Irf and Flyt were playing a game of Blackjack. With a table of ice and an ice field around the table to prevent the card from flying away. Flyt was down by 54 ice chips and was loosing badly.

"Hmmm… Hit me."

Irf laid down a card and Flyt looked at it, 7. His other cards were a 2 & a 9 adding up to a total of 18. Flyt grumbled and took his chances.

"Hit me."

Irf slapped down another card and Flyt saw that it was a 2.

"Stay," he pronounced.

"Alright, I'll stay as well."

Flyt flipped his cards and showed Irf with a triumphant smile on his face.

"20 Beat that."

"Alright."

Irf shrugged and flipped his cards. Flyt's eyes went wide when he saw Irfs cards. Blackjack.

Flyt shouted in anger and threw the cards, the table and everything off Spellfire's side. Spellfire angled his head to see everything plunge to the earth and shatter on the floor.

"What the hell man I was sure that I would win this time. That was the 30th Blackjack in a row. That was rigged."

"I didn't rig the deck just to let you know. I get lucky, that's all."

"30 Blackjacks in a row isn't luck" Flyt snorted. "That is either cheating or you switched the cards at the last minute, you being a magician and all."

"There's a difference between mages and magicians." Irf frowned. "Mages have a specific element and shape it. They take the energy from the closest source of that specific element and use it. Magicians use trickery and small bursts of magic to trick or entertain, while mages use their magic for real life situations."

"Ah well. It's over. I swear, if we were playing with real gold I would go broke man."

Irf said nothing and smiled. All of a sudden he head two loud burst of laughter and looked to see the two girls laughing loudly. He couldn't understand why they were laughing and turned around and ducked just in time to see an arrow fly right above his head and he smacked Spellfire on the egad to wake him up. Spellfire turned his head around and snarled.

_**WHAT?**_

___Focus man, we almost got clipped by an arrow. _

_**Huh? What arrow. **_

___????WHAT ARROW??? THE ARROW THAT ALMOST CLIPPED ME ON THE HEAD!!_

_**I didn't see anything. **_

___Oh Christ. Man that… LOOK OUT duck down!_

Spellfire ducked at the last minute and Flyt felt the arrow fly just inches from his head. He then looked up and saw that there were 3 more arrows flying towards him. Flyt grabbed Spellfire's horns and pulled them to the left. Spellfire jerked in surprise and curved to the left. Flyt looked at the others and saw that they were having the same trouble as he was. All except Dersha, who had even more arrows flying in her direction. Flyt took out his long rifle when he saw movement in the trees. He aimed carefully and pulled the trigger. It went off with a bang and the projectile when flying down and hit the shadow. It fell over and hit the floor, but there were so many arrows that were still flying through the air. Spellfire and Pepper dove down to the dead treetops and breathed out fire. It caught onto the leaves and branches setting them ablaze. Suddenly all of the arrows stopped being shot and dark shapes bolted from all over the place and began to run around in the forest. Pepper and Spellfire rose up to avoided the flames from coming in contact with them. Alicia and Crystal were now focused on staying on Pepper as she twisted and turned around in the air trying to regain control and fly away from the blaze. Flyt and Irf also tried to stay on as Spellfire ascended into the air as fast as possible. Arc-tan and Rouge almost fell off Dersha as she bolted as fast as she could fly, Rouge almost slid off of Dersha and had to grab her tail at the last minute to avoid falling to his death. Flyt was focused on restraining Spellfire, Alicia was trying to calm down Pepper and Arc-tan was too focused on staying onto Dersha to care where she was going.

_GET A GRIP SPELLFIRE!_

_**NO. We have to get away!**_

___Why?_

_**The gunpowder is gonna blow. **_

___Gunpowder?!_

_**Yes me and Pepper saw the gunpowder at the last minute and took off. **_

___But why would they have gunpowder when they were using arrows?_

_**I don't kn…**_

Just then there was a loud bang and a huge shockwave came after knocking down trees and blowing Spellfire and the others head over tail. Flyt lost his grip as did Irf and they fell down to the dead forest below.

Flyt woke up to find that he was on the floor flat on his back, his stomach hurt and his head was throbbing with pain. He groaned and vomited blood. He did this for a minute or so and then finally stopped, spitting out what was in his mouth. Flyt managed to get up and grabbed a tree branch for support. He coughed and coughed and coughed until he was out of air. Then he sad down with a thud and tried to calm down. He tried to figure out what happened, but his memory was fuzzy right after the explosion, but he did make out that he fell and conked out as he fell. He rubbed his head and then suddenly stopped as he remembered about Spellfire and the gang. He got up and tried to call to Spellfire, but got emptiness. He then worried, what is Spellfire's dead? No Flyt, don't think about it. Spellfire's merely out cold. Flyt wondered where he was and looked around carefully, apparently he was in a forest, but where, he couldn't tell. He got up and looked up and saw how late it was and was worried. He decided to look around and try to find the others, but he needed a light source. Then he remembered that there was a light rock in his bag and took it out. He shook it to make it glow, but it remained dark. Flyt shook it again, but it refused to glow. He then sighed and put it back into his bag. Flyt decided to go to the left, but something seemed to pull him to the right. Flyt followed his instincts and headed left. He kept walking and only stopped for a quick drink, which thankfully didn't fall out of his bag when he flew off Spellfire's back. He tripped over something and mumbled about how hard it was to walk in the forest. Flyt looked at what he tripped over and saw that it was a body. He got up and thought at first that it was Irf or Rouge, but saw that it was a feminine body and he hoped that it was Alicia. His hopes were dashed when he saw her face for it wasn't Alicia, but Crystal. He quickly examined her for any sever damage. Crystal was out cold, probably from the knock to her temple, which was slowly bleeding. On her cheek was a huge gash that was crusted with dried blood and still flowing with fresh blood. Her hand was scratched up and bloody. Part of her robe had ripped, revealing a huge cut right below her breast and he saw that it led all the way to her belly. He winced as he saw this and imagined how much it must have hurt. Flyt was about to turn Crystal over onto her stomach, but decided to treat her wounds instead. He bent down and took out a vial and popped open the cork. Then he poured half of its contents into a cloth and gently wiped the cloth onto her cuts. He then cleaned the blood from her face, body and legs discarding the cloth after use. Flyt then took out a bottle of water and gently trickled it onto her closed lips, some of it flowed right off mouth, but most of the water managed to slip past her lips. He then put his hand onto her forehead and noticed that she was boiling. Quickly pulling his hand back he put his hand into his bag and pulled out a vial of a clear blue liquid and gently opened her mouth pouring the liquid down her throat. He then closed her mouth and then got up, walked a few paces to her right and sat down.

_What do I do now? Spellfire's unconscious and I don't know where the rest of the group is. _

He suddenly heard a small amount of movement and looked up. He saw that crystal had moved a little and went over to her side. She moaned and tried to sit up, but fell backwards. Flyt quickly went over to her side and gently helped her up. She slowly turned her head to Flyt and she gave him a weak smile.

"Hi Flyt." She said weakly.

"Don't strain yourself. Your cuts haven't healed yet and the knock on your head was pretty badly knocked up."

"Alright. Where am I?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

Crystal closed her eyes and nodded off. Flyt grabbed his bag and then slung it over his shoulder. He then felt a sharp pain in his leg and looked down to see that his blade was still strapped onto his belt, but the scabbard was missing the blade was biting into his flesh. He pulled it out and then took out a cloth from his bag. Wrapping it around the blade, Flyt looked up at Crystal every few seconds and realized how worried he was about her. Once the sword was wrapped in the cloth he strapped it onto his belt again and went to Crystal. He slowly slid his hands under her back and legs and lifted her up making sure that her head rested on his shoulder. He began the long trek through the unknown forest.


	16. Black gates Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Time shift**

Flyt was tired, from carrying Crystal and walking through the woods. He came across many clearings and looked up at the sky. It was now around midnight and he was tired. Flyt decided to find a place to sleep in and carry on in the morning.

_An inn would be nice._

But he shook his head and tried to focus on looking for a place to sleep. Soon he came across a small cave nice enough for about 3-4 people. Flyt put Crystal down by the front of the cave, making sure that her head didn't hit the wall. Flyt took out a small match and struck it onto the cave wall, lighting it up and illuminating it. He saw that there were many sticks littered all over the floor and that there used to be signs of life in the cave, a bear probably. Flyt began to worry, but then saw that there hadn't been any signs of life for about 3 weeks. As the flame reached his fingers he quickly blew it out and headed back to the entrance. He saw that Crystal was still asleep and didn't want to wake her up, so he carried her and brought her to the center of the cave and set her down onto the floor. After that he then lay down onto the floor and nodded off to sleep.

Flyt woke up the sounds of birds chirping and got up. He stretched and rubbed his eyes. Crystal was still sleeping and there was a small puddle of blood from the slash across her torso. He sighed and then went over and shook Crystal awake, for he didn't want to walk around carrying her around. She turned around and opened her eyes and winced.

"Morning Crystal."

"Hey Flyt."

Crystal winced as she got up and noticed that her robe was ripped showing her cut and the bottom part of her breast. She ignored the fact that her robe was broken and saw that her cut was not very deep, but it still hurt. She gently fingered it and grunted as pain lanced through her body. Flyt went to support her as she collapsed. She cried out in pain when Flyt accidentally grazed her cut, but managed to stay standing. Flyt went into his bag and looked for a bandage but came out with a large cloth that once belonged Alicia. Tears began to come out of his eyes and he wiped them away from his face with his hand. Crystal saw the tears and went over to comfort him.

"Don't worry. I'm sure that Alicia and the others will be ok."

"I know, It's just that I miss her a lot. She was all that I had. Mother and father gone, Foster father dead. And now my sister and dragon is missing. Without you I'm not sure where to go."

Crystal put her hand onto his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. Flyt felt the soft brush of her lips and reeled back in shock. He knew that he liked her, but that was unexpected. Flyt looked at Crystal and saw that even though there were cuts on her face she was still very beautiful. Flyt was now blushing over completely now. Crystal giggled and walked towards Flyt, but he took a step back. He didn't know why, but the shock from the kiss made him unsure of Crystal and he wanted to avoid coming to close to her, in case he kissed her back. When she saw his expression she began to look down and try and hide a smile. Flyt smiled back to Crystal and picked up his stuff. Crystal did the same and the two of them smiled at each other. Flyt then looked out of the cave and headed off with Crystal following behind. As they walked through the forest they noticed that the whole place was strange. The trees were familiar and yet they seemed so alien to them. Flyt didn't like it and began to slash his way through the forest, leaving a massive trail behind them. Crystal on the other hand was calm, although she felt very uneasy.

"This place is so strange." Whispered Crystal.

"I know. It's so familiar, yet I don't know where we are. Be on guard, you can't tell what might jump out of here."

That made Crystal take out her whip, and flick it skinning the bark of a tree, releasing the sap. Flyt took no notice of the tree and continued onwards until he came past the edge of the forest. What he saw made him stand there frozen in shock. Instead of the usual plains and small villages there were huge structures that he had never seen before and large beetle like things hovering over strange flat areas with bright strips of light of blue red and green. He saw that he was standing on a hill and there was a huge flat of area in front of him. There were people true enough, but they were wearing strange clothing. Such heavy and hard looking materials and they were playing with such strange equipment. Some of them were holding equipment similar to the long rifle that Flyt had, but they had so much more. Small balls that had pins in them. Once the people pulled the pin they threw the ball at Ra'zan. Flyt felt a chill as he saw the Ra'zan getting shot at and explosions right beside them. He was about to run down the hill to help the Ra'zan when he saw them flicker and then dissipate as soon as the projectiles came in contact with them. Crystal ran up to Flyt out of breath and gasped when she saw the people.

"What? Where are we?"

"I wish I knew Crystal."

"This is so scary, the loud bang of the rifles are scaring me."

"I know it hurts my ears to."

All of a sudden they felt something prodding their backs. They wheeled around and turned to face the barrel of a gun and a young man about their age.

"What are you two doing here? And What are you wearing?"

Crystal grabbed her whip and it caught on the gun and she pulled it back, causing the gun to fly from the boy's hands. Flyt caught the gun and held it just like he would like a long rifle and aimed it at the boy. He was wearing what everyone else was wearing with some of the balls attached to his belt. He was short with brown curly hair, and his eyes were brown. Crystal snarled and put her whip away.

"What do you want from us?"

The boy gulped and put his hands into the air and replied in a shaky voice

"Nothing, it's just that no civilians are allowed in the barracks, especially around the warp zone."

"Warp zone?"

"Yeah the forest area is the warp zone. It helps us travel from one place to another quickly. I'm supposed to guard this area until the gate is fully charged, but I'm surprised that the other guards didn't detect you yet."

"Other guards?" Asked Flyt

"Yeah there are others watching for any Goliaths that pass through."

"Goliaths? You mean the Ra'zan right?"

The boy frowned and thought carefully. "I don't know about Ra'zan, but if you mean the giant alien lizards then yeah that's what we are watching for."

"Where I come from Goliaths are called Ra'zan." Said Crystal.

"Where do you two come from? You just appeared on my radar and disappeared and reappeared like 2 feet from me. Do you have radar cloaking?"

"Radar what?" Asked Crystal in confusion.

"Radar cloaking. It makes you invisible to radar."

"I don't think so. What is a radar anyways?"

"I'll show you after you put down my shotgun."

Flyt lowered the shotgun and unsheathed his blade. The boy looked really nervous when he heard the unsheathing of the blade. Then they heard yelling and a loud siren that made Flyt and Crystal cringe and cover their ears. They boy however looked worried and grabbed the shotgun.

"What's going on?" Crystal yelled over the noise

"We are under attack! Arm yourselves. Follow me and I'll lead you to the armory."

"Alright, but first tell us you name."

"Jason."

With no alternative they followed Jason through the rush of armed personnel. It was chaos. Everyone was rushing to grab their weapons and rushed out the door towards a huge ship like thing. Eventually they came across a large hallway with many steel doors with strange pads in beside them. Flyt saw that a man was punching in numbers on the keypad and it opened revealing a room full of equipment. They stopped at one of the doors and Jason opened the door. Like the other room I was also full of equipment. Many guns were put on racks and large boxes with labels on them piled on shelves. Jason put the shotgun away and grabbed a gun that looked like a long rifle, but there was a scope on the top and the rifle tube was longer ending in a large cylinder. Also the trigger area was much longer and there were knobs and buttons. Jason motioned them to grab a few weapons as he loaded his sniper rifle with ammo. Flyt was unsure what to use for there were so many choices. Crystal grabbed a gun that looked similar to the shotgun, but was smoother, more advanced looking and had a wicked looking blade at the front that seemed to be made of some strange energy. Flyt looked around and found two smaller guns that had huge 'clips' as Jason called them. He then picked up both of them and felt that they were not very comfortable, so he kept one in his bag and put the other one back. He then saw a gun that looked very strange. The handle and the trigger were sandwiched in between two long panels that covered the whole gun. It was long and the front ended into a V shape and there was a small canister of green fluid wedged in between the crest and the shell of the gun. There was also a pressure gauge integrated in the side of the gun. Flyt liked the feel of the gun and decided to use it. Jason was already helping Crystal to load the gun and pack extra ammo in her belt. Also Jason had given her a change of cloths from the broken robe into the strange heavy material that Jason and the others were wearing. Flyt walked up to Jason and gave him the gun.

"Why are you giving me the carbine?"

"Tell me how to reload it and how to use it."

"You're going to have a hard time reloading it. I tried it once and it was so annoying. The canister is supposed to come out at the push of a button, but it keeps getting jammed in the gun. I had to pull it out and then push in another canister and close the crest. Then it takes about 3-4 seconds to charge up and use again."

"That's fine with me. It's much easier that loading up a long rifle."

Jason said nothing and motioned him to take a pick of battle armor. Flyt was unsure what to wear, but he decided to use the fuzzy black one. Jason picked it up but it seamed to Flyt that he was having trouble seeing it. Eventually Crystal, Flyt and Jason were all set and went out of the armory.

"The Drop ship must have left by now. There are still some sentries about, but just about every soldier has left to defend the borders."

"So then what do we do?"

Jason smiled and brought them to a huge room filled with weird machines and some creatures that had massive wings. Flyt saw that there were dragons in the room and there were other creatures that Flyt had never seen before.

"Jason what are we supposed to do?" Asked Crystal

"We fly."


	17. Black Gates Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Familiar faces**

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! HOW DO YOU CONTROL THIS THING?!" Flyt yelled

"It's like a game. Avoid the Plasma bursts and shoot down the Goliath aircrafts. It's that simple."

"There are so many buttons Jason! Which one shoots down the aircrafts.?"

"The… WOAH… ok the blue one on the dash board fires missiles and the red one on your joystick uses machinegun fire."

"Alright. How's Crystal doing?"

"Hey Flyt! Crystal here, The Hawk is pretty good. Simple and maneuverable. How's the vulture?"

"Crazy hard to control, but it took the impact from the plasma bursts pretty well."

"Cool. Jason? Are you ok with Merlock?"

"Yeah, Merlock took a plasma bolt to the tail, but she will be alright."

Currently Flyt was flying in a fighter jet and failing to engage in combat. He managed to dodge many plasma bursts by sheer luck and took out one Phantom scout. Crystal was flying closer to him in the smaller more versatile craft, showing off to Flyt how easy hers was to control. Flyt grumbled as he veered too far to the left and nearly collided with Merlock and Jason.

"Watch it!" Jason hollered in the mike.

Flyt winced as his voice blasted in his ear. "Sorry." He mumbled "Hard to control."

All of a sudden a plasma burst streaked by them and Merlock banked far to the left. Flyt then heard a loud thump as something hit the plane. Flyt looked up and tried to see what hit him. He then heard a soft slicing sound like knife going into butter. He veered and corkscrewed as far as possible, trying to dislodge whatever was stuck to the plane and a smooth stream of plasma bursts headed straight for him. Flyt angled the plane down as fast as possible and the stream flew harmlessly past him. Satisfied he wondered what hit him and heard a loud rip of metal and a huge gush of wind and looked back to see a Ra'zan in the cargo hold. Flyt began to freak.

"HOLY SHIT!! Jason? Crystal? Any idea how to flush out a rouge Ra'zan from the plane?!"

"WHAAA?" Crystal said in confusion.

"What are you talking about?" yelled Jason

The Ra'zan turned and saw Flyt and rushed him Flyt threw whatever he could find in the plane and quickly put the plane on auto pilot. When he turned around he felt the force of the Ra'zan slam into his body and the two of them broke through the windshield sending them flying into thin air. Flyt began to panic as the Ra'zan lost its grip and took out a pen like object. It struck Flyt as familiar and the Ra'zan pressed the button. Dragons close by flinched and cringed as the button was pushed, but a dark shape zoomed closer to the Ra'zan and went under it. Flyt was desperate and grabbed the Ra'zans head crest, as the two of them slammed into the back of a winged serpent clad in full battle armor, just like Merlock. The Ra'zan grabbed Flyt and turned him so that they were facing eye to eye. Flyt was scared, but his fear went out as he recognized the very creature grabbing him by his collar. It snarled and was about throw Flyt to the ground.

"Arc-tan? Is that you?"

The Ra'zan faltered and looked back at the human soldier. "Who are you infidel?"

"It's me, Flyt. Don't you remember?"

"Yes, but how am I supposed to know if you are really Flyt."

"Ask me a… AA missile inbound, get out of the way Dersha!"

The Slytha suddenly banked right and batted the missile away with her tail. It bounced off and flew straight towards a small clearing where a small skirmish was at hand. Arc-tan was frozen in shock. No one, but his family and closest friends knew the name of his mount. Then he began to realize that Flyt was not fake and pulled him back and sat him down.

"Sit down and don't let go. Grab onto me if you have to, we're getting out of the battlefield."

Arc-tan gently pulled Dershas armor horns and she banked towards the forest and flew as fast as she could away from the melee. Flyt got into contact with Crystal and Jason with what was left of his communication.

"Crystal Jason? How are you?"

"Flyt? Your alive. So did you manage to remove the Ra'zan from your plane?" Crystal asked in a worried voice.

"Sorta. It turns out that the Ra'zan was Arc-tan. You remember him right? The Ra'zan that accompanied us when we were home?"

"What! Your traveling with a Goliath!!" Jason yelled

"He's an old friend of ours. He came here just like us."

"I still don't like it. I hope you're safe."

"Crystal, Jason! Meet me at a small clearing beside the ruined hospital building. I'll explain everything there."

"Alright, over and out."

"Copy that."

Flyt saw that Arc-tan was heavily armed just like Flyt was, except with more sleek guns and a blade handle. When he reached for the handle a small set of teeth nipped his hand and he drew back in surprise. A small head poked from under Arc-tans bag and gnashed its teeth. Flyt recognized the minor dragon at once.

"Fanta! You're here to!"

_**What the? Flyt?**_

Flyt sat up straighter when he felt Fanta speak with him.

_Yeah it's me! How you doing?_

_**Not bad, sorry about nipping your finger, it's just that Arc-tan really likes his Warp blade and he hates it when other people takes it. **_

___Oh. Thanks for warning me. _

Flyt saw that the battlefield had stretched far. Here and there dead bodies and ruined weaponry had been scattered about. Buildings and turrets were smoldering or demolished. He shook his head at the destruction of the war and wondered how many people had to die. He remembered his first kill and wondered if the soldier had any family or friends. Tears began to slowly drip out of his eyes as he thought about the families and friends that would never see their loved ones again, but he slowly shook his head and wiped the tears away. _War is war, there is no such thing as a war where no one dies. _Flyt sighed and caught sight of the smoldering ruins of what used to be a hospital. It made him feel sad that so many defenseless people had to die in a place of healing, but he pushed those thoughts aside as Dersha landed in front of the hospital. Flyt and Arc-tan hopped off of the Slytha and waited for the two others to get there. Soon after a dragon and a fighter jet touched down close to the entrance of the hospital. Merlock looked uneasy when she caught sight of Dersha. Crystal hopped out from the pilot seat and walked over to Flyt and Arc-tan. Jason dismounted Merlock and also headed into their direction, hand on his pistol at all times.

"Jason this is Arc-tan, Arc-tan this is Jason."

"Hello Jason" Arc-tan started and raised his hand as of to shake, but Jason just starred at him and kept his hand on his pistol, keeping his eyes on the Ra'zan.

"Hey Flyt?" Asked Crystal "What do you think happened to Alicia, Pepper, Spellfire, Rouge and Irf? Everyone's here except them."

Flyt shrugged his shoulders and sighed as he remembered Spellfire. He tried to contact him again, but got nothing but darkness. His shoulders drooped and h tried to keep his tears from falling out. Crystal saw how sad he was and hugged him, trying to make him better, but Flyt felt awkward with everyone else starring at him. Then Jason laughed and relaxed a bit. Arc-tan went to check that Dersha's armor was not badly scratched as she slept and Merlock was trying not to laugh with Jason. Flyt's cheeks went red and he tried to push Crystal away. Realizing that she was embarrassing Flyt she let go and wiped his eyes.

"Thanks Crystal, but next time don't do that in public." Said Flyt

She laughed as well and then turned her attention to the ruined building. She saw that half of the structure was burned out and destroyed. Many skeletons littered the floor, both of Ra'zan and humans, which scared her. She took out her gun and made sure that it was locked and loaded. Flyt and Jason looked at her in a funny way and said nothing. All of a sudden a plasma bolt whizzed by them and hit Crystal on her back. She gasped and pitched foreword. Flyt yelled and ran to her, and Jason locked his pistol and aimed it at Arc-tan thinking that he shot the bolt, but he saw that Arc-tan was struggling with another Ra'zan with a small gun that looked like a sleek pistol. Flyt was down by Crystal's side and looked at her back. He saw that it was badly burnt and some flesh was exposed. He took out a flask and uncorked it gently pouring about ¼ of it's contents onto her back and rubbed it all over the wound. Crystal moaned as the ointment healed her flesh. The burns slowly healed, but the open wounds stayed open, but Flyt had to carefully remove the bolt from Crystal otherwise the bolt will cause her pain for the rest of her life. So he gently pulled the bolt from her flesh and she let loose a scream. Flyt then flung the bolt once it had been removed and turned Crystal onto her back. Crystals eyes were closed and she smiled weakly again and grunted as her wounds scraped the sand.

"That's the second time huh?"

"Yeah. Why you always get hurt?"

Crystal squirmed and Flyt let her up. Jason had his Pistol aimed at the Ra'zans head while Arc-tan held him down.

"What happened?"

"Ask him." Jason jerked his head to the Ra'zans direction.

Flyt then walked towards the Ra'zan and Arc-tan got off of it, still holding it's arms behind it's back.

"Who are you?" Asked Flyt.

The Ra'zan sneered and kicked at Flyt who, in a quick motion, grabbed it's foot and twisted it so that it broke the Ra'zans leg. It howled in pain and Flyt looked in shock at the broken leg of the Ra'zan. Arc-tan let got of the Ra'zan and disarmed it from all weaponry. It gave Flyt a look of anger and snarled at him, but it was rendered harmless, for it couldn't move and it was completely disarmed. Flyt asked again.

"Who are you?"

"Why should I tell you, filthy human."

"Because you are under the command of an officer." Said Arc-tan none too lightly.

"I am Vel-terra and I will not say anything else you traitor." She snarled.

Arc-tan grunted and mounted Dersha.

"By the looks of your armor and weapons you are a recon scout, yes?"

Vel-terra said nothing.

"Well then where is you Slytha?"

She froze, but then but back a reply, just as a loud sound and a Slytha crashed through the wreckage of tanks and battle weapons. It hissed at Merlock and Arc-tan, but looked hungrily at the three humans. Dersha hissed back at the Slytha, who in return lunged at Dersha. She moved aside and bit the Slytha on the back between its wings. It roared and used its tail to whip Dersha on the head many times, until she let go. Then the two Slythas separated and stood far apart, hissing menacingly at each other. They were about to strike each other again when all of a sudden a fighter jet and a phantom scout was fighting above and the phantom was shot down. The whole group had to jump aside to avoid the fiery crash. Flyt tackled crystal onto the floor and managed to shield her body from the impact from the ship. The two Slythas flew up and looked down to see the massive wreckage of the scout ship and Jason and Arc-tan jumped out of the way of the blazing wreck. When the ship crashed onto the floor it was smoking and blue flames licked the sides of the plane. They approached the plane cautiously and saw that the pilot was dead from the impact. The neuron reactors were in terrible condition and was about to blow. Everyone ran away from the blazing wreck as the neuron reactors exploded. The shockwave was so intense that it blew everyone into a Time rift.


	18. Black gates Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Betrayal**

Flyt and Crystal landed with a thump with Crystal underneath. Flyt quickly rolled off her and got up to survey the area. He saw that the whole area was very familiar and that it was really similar to…

"Home! We're home!" Crystal yelled with joy.

Flyt's eyes went wide with shock and felt a pricking sensation at the back of his skull. He pulled at it and felt something snap at him and felt a huge rush of joy enter his mind. Puzzled he slowly retreated from it, but felt it rush at him and overcome him.

_**Flyt! Shit man, don't do that again. Why did you have to ditch me? Not me alone, but your sister and everyone else. Only Crystal, Arc-tan and Dersha are missing. I hope their ok. **_

___They're fine. They followed me apparently, but what a strange place it was. So advanced technology and so many people._

_**Did you bring anything back?**_

Flyt thought about it, but was about dismiss the idea when he remembered the Plasma bolter that Jason gave him and grenades in his pouches.

_Yeah I have a lot of advanced weapons. _

_**Make sure you don't loose them cause if you do there is going to be hell to pay with. **_

___Yeah, bounty hunters would love to take them. _

_**Where are you?**_

___I don't know yet. Where are you?_

_**I'm at a small house, along with Pepper and Alicia, where the people are really nice to me.**_

___Really? Well take care then. I'll see you to morrow on the deep plains. Alright?_

_**Sure. See ya!**_

All of a sudden there were three loud thumps and Flyt wheeled around and saw that Merlock, Dersha and the other Slytha fell inches from the ground. Crystal saw that they all fell down through a small rift in the sky. Crystal blinked trying to make sense of what she was seeing, but once she blinked the rifts disappeared and the Sky was normal again. The three mounts groaned and looked up to find that they were in a totally different place. Flyt was about to walk towards the three mounts when he suddenly felt something land on top of him and he fell to the ground crushed by all of the weight. He tried to move the object that was on top of him was too heavy. He felt it move and pushed it off of him to see that it was Arc-tan. They grunted as they tried to untangle themselves and he could see that Crystal was having the same problem, except Jason was on top of her, and for some reason it made Flyt feel uneasy. Arc-tan managed to get off of Flyt and he quickly ran towards Crystal and helped separate Jason from Crystal. Flyt was worried about her wounds, but saw that they had disappeared, leaving no trace of their existence. _Strange._ Then he noticed that Vel-terra was healed from when Flyt broke her arm. He was worried that she was going to bolt or attack them, but she stood still looking at her arm in amazement. Flyt thought Jason dusted himself off and helped Crystal up. The first thing that happened after that was that it began to rain. Jason tried to shelter himself, without any luck and turned to Flyt.

"We need to get out of the rain."

"I know, but where are we going to go?" Flyt said directing it to anyone with an answer.

"I remember this place." Arc-tan said "There is a small house over the hill towards the west."

Fanta crawled out of Arc-tan's bag and flew to his shoulders, with a small blade strapped to his bag and a mini needle gun in one hand.

_Yeah, I remember that place. Wasn't there a really nice old man and a girl living there?_ Fanta said to everyone

Arc-tan nodded. "After I was exiled from my tribe, this was long time after I was exiled; I went over to the hills and came across that house. At first they were frightened of me when first met them, but then they got to know me better and helped me. They directed me to a small village close to the deep plains and that's when I met you."

Flyt nodded and waited for Arc-tan to lead the way. Arc-tan began to trek towards the hills, but then remembered that they could ride their mounts.

"We could make more time riding our mounts. Flyt and I could ride on Dersha, Crystal and Jason could ride on Merlock and Vel-terra can ride on her Slytha."

Flyt didn't feel very comfortable letting Crystal ride with Jason; _it's not your decision. I might like Crystal, but I don't think that she would like me. _He quickly mounted Dersha and they headed off towards the house.

When they reached the house it began to pour like crazy. Everyone was drenched and they had to wait under the cover of trees while Arc-tan headed to the door and explained the situation. When he knocked the door, a young girl about 12 years old opened the door and looked at Arc-tan in question, then recognition.

"Arc-tan? Is that you? It's only been 3 days. Why have you come back? Do you need something?"

"Well we need shelter and it's pouring outside."

"Come on in Arc-tan. You are welcome into our house anytime." Said a scratchy old voice.

"Thank you Byron."

He motioned to everyone and they all went into the house dripping wet. It was a very humble home, with only a small amount of furniture and a large rocking chair with an old man sitting in it smoking a pipe. Flyt let his eyes wander and his eyes landed on a huge book shelf with many books of all sizes on it, many were old and large, but one that caught his attention the most was called _**Prophecies of the great.**_ The title was scrawled on the spine of the book, as if the book was blank and someone had given the blank book a name.

"Welcome everyone to my home." Said Byron.

Flyt turned his head and saw an old man with a long white beard and a small mop of hair sitting in the rocking chair. He was wearing a long purple robe and was smoking a pipe beside the fire.

"I am Byron and this is my granddaughter Reeda." He said gesturing to the young girl who had opened the door. She was pretty cute, beautiful creamy skin, but her eyes were strange though, for one of them was a bright blue color, but the other one was covered by a black eye patch that seemed to glow slightly. Flyt blinked but just saw the black eye patch. She was wearing a deep blue cloak with the hood pulled over her head and there was a small patch of blue in the middle of the cloak.

"Hi. You must be the Dr-" She paused and fixed her sentence as fast as she could "I mean you must be Flyt."

"How do you know my name?" asked Flyt in surprise.

She giggled and replied shyly. "I'm a seer I see a lot of things." Then quietly in Flyt's ear. "Even your body structure."

Flyt went red as a tomato and Reeda laughed. Everyone else was puzzled and looked at Byron for some clue as to what was going on. He shrugged and the door opened as another girl walked into the room. She froze when she saw the party and cried out with delight when she laid eyes on Flyt.

"OH MY GOD Flyt!! YOU'RE ALIVE"

"Alicia? Is that really you?" he said in disbelief.

She ran up to him and hugged him until he couldn't breathe. "Where have you been! Spellfire and the others have been so worried about you and what are you wearing!"

"I don't know, it was what everyone else was wearing when we were flown to some strange place and can you please stop hugging me, your crushing me."

"You have to change into something else." she said letting him go then she caught sight of Crystal and hugged her to.

"How are you Crystal?" she asked

"Good I guess. What about you and Pepper?"

"Now that all of you are here excellent." Alicia said with a big grin on her face.

"Speaking of which" Flyt butted in "Where is Pepper?"

"She's outside getting dirty with Spellfire."

Flyt's eyes went wide and Alicia laughed. "You sick little brother, I don't mean like that. I meant that they're playing in the mud, I don't know why they would do that, but apparently they're having a lot of fun."

Flyt smiled and he felt Spellfire's mind reach out to him and embrace him.

_**What a coincidence. Either this is sheer luck or you are following me. **_

___I think this is sheer luck Spellfire. Wow I can't believe I'm back. _

_**Where have you been this whole time? After the big bang you, Arc-tan and Dersha disappeared and Crystal disappeared after she fell off Pepper. **_

___I don't know, but Jason should know. _

_**Who's Jason?**_

___A marine from where we came. _

There was a crash and a loud shout. Flyt turned around to see Vel-terra holding Arc-tan in a headlock, with a needle pistol aimed at his head and Jason on the floor beside them aiming his bolt gun at Vel-terra.

"If any of you try to stop me I'll put a hole in the traitor's head."

"You have no where to go." Said Arc-tan

Vel-terra snarled and pushed the gun closer to his head. "I will go back to headquarters and report you. You will be shot for treason."

"This isn't your home." Flyt said in a cold voice.

She was about to say something, but faltered. This gave Arc-tan a change to elbow her in the abdomen and grab the gun. Vel-terra squeezed the trigger, sending needles shooting into the floor. Arc-tan then turned the gun around and aimed it at her head and she stood still.

"Listen here and listen well." He hissed "We aren't at your home. This place is far more primitive to where you come from. They are better people than the Ra'zan and the humans from your world, but there are unspeakable dangers and all of them are much stronger that you armor, weapons or you Slytha combined. If you want to survive living here until you get home you might want to listen to my advice."

Vel-terra spat out a string of curses in her own tongue that made Arc-tan flinch, but he kept the gun leveled at her head in case she tried to attack him again.

"You are a traitor. From an inventor to a murderer. You are no better than the rest of us Ra'zan." She snarled

"No I am not a murderer. I will not lay a finger on these people. I only attack if…aarg"

Everyone starred in shock as they saw Vel-terra flick a dagger from her belt and it hit Arc-tan just below the neck. He fell backwards with a thud, dropping the gun and Fanta looked in horror as the bluish blood of a Ra'zan began to flow from the wound. Vel-terra smirked and was about to flick another Dagger at Flyt when she cringed and her eyes went wide. She roared and fell to her knees. Everyone was wondering what happened, until they heard roars and hissing outside.

"What's happening?" Flyt wondered.

"Vel-terra is dying inside as Kragla gets ripped apart, by Dersha and Spellfire." Reeda says calmly sitting on the floor.

"What?!" Flyt yelled. He ran outside and saw in horror as Dersha was dodging left and right as Spellfire slashed at Kragla. Flyt saw that the Slytha was bleeding from multiple wounds and his armor was torn off, with small parts of it still intact on his skin. He felt the horror of Kragla as Spellfire grabbed him by the neck and was about to snap it in half. Flyt took and arrow and shot it at Spellfire hitting him on the flank. It bounced off of his rock hard armor. Spellfire looked at him holding the Slytha, still alive, in his mouth.

_**What was that for? **_

___Don't kill him AND TELL DERSHA NOT TO EITHER, She's going to kill him!_

Spellfire turned his head to Dersha just as she struck. Then she stopped just centimeters from Kraglas jugular. She looked at Spellfire in a confused look and Spellfire jerked his head towards Flyt, who stood there still as a statue. Spellfire dropped Kragla, who quickly got up, blood dripping from multiple wounds. Suddenly he collapsed. Spellfire looks at the Slytha and was about to walk off when Dersha bites his tail making him yelp. They communicated for a bit and Spellfire reluctantly agreed to help him. Flyt ran inside to see Vel-terra in the same condition as Kragla was. The house was really in a flurry now. Everyone was running about trying to find a way to heal the two Ra'zan. All except the old man and Flyt. _This is unbelievable. What the hell is going on?_


End file.
